DENVER — Ben Carson, the retired neurosurgeon who has never held or run for elective office, is currently fourth in the RealClearPolitics average of national polls — ahead of five governors, four senators, one CEO and one billionaire. Carson has been climbing in the polls since he announced his candidacy on May 4. On the day before the announcement, Carson was at 4.8 percent in the RCP average; now, he’s at 9.4 percent.
The combination of Carson’s rise and his unorthodox campaign style — Carson’s short-on-specifics stump speech is like no other — has left some of his rivals baffled. “I just don’t get it,” one said in a private conversation recently. “I don’t get it.”
RELATED: Complete coverage of the Western Conservative Summit 2015
Much of the Republican presidential conversation is old versus new, which is shorthand for Jeb Bush versus any other candidate. Along with that conversation there is the senator versus governor debate, the Washington versus not-Washington debate, the populist versus establishment debate, and others. Carson stands apart from all of them.
Carson has scored points before audiences around the country by arguing that his lack of political experience is an asset, not a liability. “The professional pundits say, you can’t do it because you’re not a politician,” he told a crowd at the Western Conservative Summit in Denver Saturday night. “I would say I can do it because I’m not a politician.” A certain type of conservative crowd — usually ones who are fed up with Republicans — loves that line.
Carson makes the case that everyday life can prepare a person to be president. “Experience can actually come from a variety of different things,” he said in Denver, “and I’ve had a lot of lifetime experiences that I think are very useful — experiences growing up in dire poverty, and experiencing every socio-economic level in our society. I think that’s valuable experience, because it helps you see a lot of things.”
Of course, not everyone grows up to be a world-renowned surgeon. But doing anything is better than being a politician, in Carson’s view; as he tells it, political experience is a uniquely unqualifying experience for public office. “Ordinary people, citizens, can have all kinds of experiences,” he explained. “For those who happen to have spent their lives pushing papers around and trying to get re-elected, to think that that is better life experience when it comes to solving problems, that they have the best experience, I think it’s a suspension of intellectual activity, to believe something like that.” More applause.
By the end of the Denver gathering, Carson came out on top of the straw poll.
Why do conservative audiences like him so much? The simplest answer is that Carson is a really appealing man. Another is that he speaks to the throw-’em-out strain among conservatives, the same kind of thinking that would be open to a third-party candidate. Yet another is that Carson’s it’s-really-very-simple commonsense approach to complex issues resonates with a significant segment of the party. And finally, as the only black candidate, Carson’s race might have something to do with it; he might appeal to that part of the Republican mind that has been scarred by years of accusations of racism, and also to those who believe the GOP needs a minority candidate to win more minority voters.
Finally, Carson projects a serenity and faith that attracts a following. It’s hard to overstate the degree to which he believes that God has guided him not just through his life but to this campaign. Speaking to him at the Western Conservative Summit, I noted that in his memoir, Gifted Hands, Carson wrote that he believes God gave him a special talent for surgery. Does he now also believe God gave him a special talent to be president of the United States?
“Well, I think the people will make that decision,” Carson answered. “You know, one of the wonderful things about the system that we have is you have an opportunity to be out there with all of the, quote, political experts, and the people will be able to hear what I have to say and they’ll be able to hear what they have to say. And they will be able to make the decision. If it were up to the political experts, of course not, I would have no chance. But it’s up to the people. And our government was really designed for the people, not for a political class. And I think we’ll find out what the people decide.”
