FEISTY ROLLINS PULLS NO PUNCHES IN WIDE-RANGING POLITICAL TOME : GOSSIP REIGNS IN ROLLICKING LOOK AT PARTY BATTLES.

Byline: Michiko Kakutani The New York Times

Title: ``Bare Knuckles and Back Rooms: My Life in American Politics''

Author: Ed Rollins, with Tom DeFrank

Data: 386 pages, Broadway Books; $27.50

Our rating: Four Stars

``Bare Knuckles and Back Rooms,'' the feisty new memoir by political consultant Ed Rollins, is actually several books in one: a gossipy kiss-and-tell account of the author's encounters with the prominent politicians he's served; a Bildungsroman-esque chronicle of one man's political odyssey from idealism (as a youthful worker for Robert F. Kennedy's 1968 presidential campaign) to disillusionment (as chief consultant for Michael Huffington's unsuccessful 1994 senatorial campaign); a shrewd assessment of the political game as it's played in America today; and a carefully calculated mea culpa that attempts to spin the author's controversial career.

As Rollins himself is quick to point out, he is probably as well known for his big mouth as he is for his campaign savvy, a quality that has made him a favorite source for reporters and often cast him in the role of ``the skunk at a garden party'' in political circles.

Rollins got himself in trouble with the Reagan administration for deriding the political prospects of the president's daughter, Maureen Reagan, to a reporter. He got himself in trouble with the Bush administration for urging Republican congressional candidates to distance themselves from Bush's repudiation of his no-new-taxes pledge. He got himself in trouble with the entire GOP when he charged off to manage the presidential campaign of Ross Perot. And he got himself in trouble with just about everyone when he claimed that the Christie Whitman campaign (which he had managed) had paid African-American ministers to help suppress voter turnout in the 1993 New Jersey gubernatorial race, a claim that he later retracted and that was debunked by a federal investigation.

In ``Bare Knuckles,'' which was written with former Newsweek correspondent Tom DeFrank, Rollins revisits the Whitman firestorm. He writes that he had ``absolutely no direct knowledge of any voter suppression, any payments to ministers or their favorite projects or charities, or any illegal or unethical conduct by anyone allied with the Whitman campaign.'' Those telling such stories, he writes, were ``maligning people based on hunch and supposition.'' He adds, however, that ``more than two years later I believe in my gut that someone did pay people in the black community to help Christie Whitman become governor.''

Although Rollins portrays Whitman as a dignified and hard-working candidate, he is scathing about her husband, John, whom he characterizes as a high-strung, arrogant meddler. Other portraits in this volume are even more harsh, seemingly animated in equal parts by candor, spite and a simple desire to say ``I Told You So.''

Rollins describes Perot, whose campaign he quit after six weeks, as ``an extremely dangerous demagogue with delusions of adequacy,'' a willful and ignorant candidate who ``considered campaign necessities like direct mail, advertising and television pointless extravagances'' yet spent ``hundreds of thousands on offices and computers and electronic gadgets that weren't really useful.'' Rollins says he was ultimately happy that Perot did not listen to his advice because he ``would have been a disaster in the White House'' - ``a little dictator, ruling over a government in chaos.''

The California senatorial candidate Michael Huffington and his wife, Arianna, Rollins says, were ``two of the most unprincipled political creatures I'd ever encountered.'' He writes: ``One was such a complete cipher he gave empty suits a bad name. But his wife was even worse - a domineering Greek Rasputin determined to ride her husband's wealth to political glory at any cost.''

Nancy Reagan, whom Rollins says was called ``Mommie Dearest'' by some aides, is depicted as ``paranoid, high-strung, and neurotic.'' She was ``the most feared person in the White House,'' Rollins writes, and her phone calls were usually ``as welcome as root-canal surgery.''

A fervent Reaganite, Rollins blames George Bush and James Baker for selling out the Reagan Revolution. He describes Baker as ``an unbelievable control freak'' who was constantly maneuvering behind the scenes, and he describes Bush as ``even more of an accidental president than Jerry Ford,'' a man who ``had absolutely no vision, no core ideological values and no real electoral strengths.''

He is kinder toward Jack Kemp: While he describes Bob Dole's new running mate as ``a totally unmanageable candidate'' who had to be put on a ``Word Diet'' in the 1988 presidential campaign, he also hails him as ``the sole legitimate heir to the Reagan Revolution.''

The overall picture of political life that emerges from ``Bare Knuckles'' is that of a no-holds-barred, knock-down-drag-out fight, not just between opposing candidates in elections, but also among competing Republican strategists, advisers and aides. Rollins writes that members of the Baker team in the Reagan White House ``were masters of the black art of using someone else's phrases with reporters so somebody else got fingered for their leaks'' and that his former deputy, Lee Atwater, produced backdated memos ``after an event'' to make himself look more brilliant. Rollins' account of the ways in which he was repeatedly betrayed and undermined by Republican colleagues can only make the reader think: With friends like these, who needs Democrats?

At the end of his book, Rollins - who says he's now left politics for good - broadens his focus, dissecting some of the problems with the current political landscape, including the proliferation of attack ads, the growing clout of special interest groups, the increasing costs of running for office and the need for campaign finance reform. It is time, he writes, ``for healing and common ground.''

Given Rollins' love of the game and his own highly partisan past (not to mention his own use of negative ads), such statements are disingenuous at best.

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Photo: The resume of political consultant Ed Rollins includ es stints working for Robert F. Kennedy, Jack Kemp, Michael Huffington and Ross Perot.