Ed Rollins predicts someone will emerge as a great unifier in the Kansas Republican Party to bridge the gap between the moderates and conservatives.

When that will happen — and who it will be — is anybody’s guess, Ronald Reagan’s former campaign adviser said Tuesday.

“What will happen here is through a lot of rhetoric, somebody will break through the system and bring it all back together,” Rollins said. “Reagan did that.”

Rollins is spending part of this week as the first visiting fellow at the Dole Institute of Politics at Kansas University. His schedule included a Monday lecture, presentation to students and visits to classes.

His political resume includes manager of Reagan’s 1984 re-election campaign, chairman of Jack Kemp’s 1988 presidential campaign, executive director of the National Republican Congressional Committee and manager of Ross Perot’s 1992 presidential campaign.

“If there were a hall of fame for political strategists, Ed would be elected by unanimous ballot the first year he was up for vote,” said Bill Lacy, director of the Dole Institute. “He’s that good.”

Until a Republican party unifier comes to the forefront, Rollins said to expect deep divisions.

He sounded off on a variety of topics during a forum Tuesday:

• On the electoral college, he said he wished the United States would go to a system where candidates could pick up electoral votes by winning a Congressional district instead of having to win the entire state.

“A lot of people were out of the process,” he said. “Those who were part of the process felt bombarded by 9,000 commercials saying negative things about each other.”

• On Howard Dean as chairman of the Democratic National Committee: “Dean is a terrible choice for the Democrats…. He’s either going to self-destruct fairly quickly or going to become irrelevant.”
• On why Perot lost the 1992 election: “I tried to get him to do what was right, and he didn’t want to do any of it.”