With the summer of Trump coming to a close, the fall might belong to Dr. Ben Carson. Earlier this year, we labeled Carson “the 2016 campaign’s most interesting long shot” — but that long-shot is seeing a rise in the polls in Iowa, and nationally.
In January, executive editor Fred Barnes profiled Carson in a cover story titled “Taking Ben Carson Seriously.” And it appears that primary voters are doing just that.
Here are a few choice excerpts from Barnes’s cover story:
Candidates like Carson from the outskirts of electoral politics, who’ve never before run for office, are routinely dismissed as dreamers. They’re bucking history. They’re bound to wash out after the first caucus and primary, if not earlier. And in choosing Terry Giles, a Houston businessman with no political experience, as his campaign chairman, Carson only added to skepticism about his candidacy.
But Carson, 63, is no Herman Cain, the Georgia businessman who ran for the GOP nomination in 2012. Cain flew solo, without a campaign organization. His candidacy went nowhere. Carson is different. He has substantial name identification. He can raise money. His poverty-to-prominence story is compelling. He has a grassroots following. He is fluent on national issues.
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The pro-Carson drive has emerged as a fact of life for Republicans in Iowa. It has a full-time staffer—political veteran Tina Goff—and claims to have Carson chairmen in all 99 Iowa counties. Once Carson announces, he should inherit this critical campaign infrastructure. Sousa and Robinson bought a list of past Republican caucusgoers and sent them four mailers. They also got 4,000 of them to declare their favorite in 2016. Undecided came in first (22 percent), followed by Senator Ted Cruz (17 percent) and Carson (14 percent).
Presidential polls so far before the election year are notoriously unreliable. Yet they can legitimize a seemingly fringe candidate. This appears to have happened in Carson’s case, at least in Iowa. In the Bloomberg Politics/Des Moines Register’s Iowa poll in October of likely GOP caucus participants, Carson finished second with 11 percent to Mitt Romney’s 17 percent. And in the national CNN/ORC poll in December, Carson got 10 percent, second only to Romney’s 20 percent. He was ahead of Jeb Bush (9 percent), Chris Christie (8 percent), and Mike Huckabee (7 percent).
Does all this mean Carson is a serious rival to the bigger Republican names with long résumés and well-developed political skills? Possibly. At least he’s a long shot. Carson falls into that category of people who, having been successful in one high-powered field, assume they can succeed in another. Some are delusional. Others are more grounded, Ronald Reagan being the best example. In his stump speech, Carson says listening to Reagan drew him away from his liberal views and led him to conservatism. Carson appears to be grounded.
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But Carson’s most striking feature is his calmness. I’ve interviewed him three times and he never raised his voice, even slightly. He’s pretty much the same in public appearances. Being calm—always—is a necessary trait in a brain surgeon, but unusual in a candidate. Armstrong Williams, Carson’s business manager and friend for more than two decades, says he’s never seen Carson get angry. Mike Murray, who created the “Save Our Healthcare” project, says Carson “has a great way of getting his point across without yelling or screaming.”
One thing not in doubt is Carson’s conservatism. He’s the real deal, an economic, social, and foreign policy conservative. He’s pro-life, opposed to gay marriage, eager to reduce welfare dependency and reform the tax code. “We need to recognize that there is a responsibility that goes with strength and that goes with position and leadership,” he told radio talk show host Hugh Hewitt in September. “And if we don’t exercise it, someone else will. And we don’t really want another nation at the pinnacle of the world that is not as benign as we are.”
But Carson, 63, is no Herman Cain, the Georgia businessman who ran for the GOP nomination in 2012. Cain flew solo, without a campaign organization. His candidacy went nowhere. Carson is different. He has substantial name identification. He can raise money. His poverty-to-prominence story is compelling. He has a grassroots following. He is fluent on national issues.
…
The pro-Carson drive has emerged as a fact of life for Republicans in Iowa. It has a full-time staffer—political veteran Tina Goff—and claims to have Carson chairmen in all 99 Iowa counties. Once Carson announces, he should inherit this critical campaign infrastructure. Sousa and Robinson bought a list of past Republican caucusgoers and sent them four mailers. They also got 4,000 of them to declare their favorite in 2016. Undecided came in first (22 percent), followed by Senator Ted Cruz (17 percent) and Carson (14 percent).
Presidential polls so far before the election year are notoriously unreliable. Yet they can legitimize a seemingly fringe candidate. This appears to have happened in Carson’s case, at least in Iowa. In the Bloomberg Politics/Des Moines Register’s Iowa poll in October of likely GOP caucus participants, Carson finished second with 11 percent to Mitt Romney’s 17 percent. And in the national CNN/ORC poll in December, Carson got 10 percent, second only to Romney’s 20 percent. He was ahead of Jeb Bush (9 percent), Chris Christie (8 percent), and Mike Huckabee (7 percent).
Does all this mean Carson is a serious rival to the bigger Republican names with long résumés and well-developed political skills? Possibly. At least he’s a long shot. Carson falls into that category of people who, having been successful in one high-powered field, assume they can succeed in another. Some are delusional. Others are more grounded, Ronald Reagan being the best example. In his stump speech, Carson says listening to Reagan drew him away from his liberal views and led him to conservatism. Carson appears to be grounded.
…
But Carson’s most striking feature is his calmness. I’ve interviewed him three times and he never raised his voice, even slightly. He’s pretty much the same in public appearances. Being calm—always—is a necessary trait in a brain surgeon, but unusual in a candidate. Armstrong Williams, Carson’s business manager and friend for more than two decades, says he’s never seen Carson get angry. Mike Murray, who created the “Save Our Healthcare” project, says Carson “has a great way of getting his point across without yelling or screaming.”
One thing not in doubt is Carson’s conservatism. He’s the real deal, an economic, social, and foreign policy conservative. He’s pro-life, opposed to gay marriage, eager to reduce welfare dependency and reform the tax code. “We need to recognize that there is a responsibility that goes with strength and that goes with position and leadership,” he told radio talk show host Hugh Hewitt in September. “And if we don’t exercise it, someone else will. And we don’t really want another nation at the pinnacle of the world that is not as benign as we are.”
