Ben Carson, M.D., the famous retired Johns Hopkins’ neurosurgeon, stood just three feet from the President of the United States at the bi-partisan and nominally genteel 2013 National Prayer Breakfast in Washington, D.C.
Carson began his 27 minute prayerful comments by saying that he has discovered in recent years that “it’s very difficult to speak to a large group of people and not offend someone.”
And offend he did. He launched into a calm and sometime humorous critique of the state of the nation and offered a direct alternative to Obamacare. The President didn’t look particulary irritated, but the White House later asked for an apology.
Carson refused, and instead, he began an improbable march to capture the White House.
He started by writing a book called One Nation, became a Fox News commentator, gave his support to a Draft Carson movement led by John Phillip Sousa IV (yes, the great-grandson) and recently formed his own Presidential Exploratory Committee. Most political insiders believe he’ll announce his official candidacy for the Republican nomination in May 2015.
Everything changed after the prayer breakfast, Carson told Fred Barnes a senior editor of the conservative Weekly Standard. In that moment, a new political star was born for the socially conservative religious wing of the Republican Party.
Iowa Insurgents
A neurosurgeon in the White House. Is it even possible?
Probably not, but Carson has some pretty impressive polling numbers at this stage of the Republican presidential primary. In a national December CNN/ORC poll, he led the current Republican bluebloods.
Iowa caucuses aren’t until next January, but Carson already has a ghost campaign organization in place with chairs in each of Iowa’s 99 counties. The various groups supporting his candidacy have raised over $14 million dollars.
He’s also a very compelling Horatio Alger character on the American landscape. His poverty to medical brilliance narrative was even made into a 2009 television movie called, Gifted Hands, where he was portrayed by Cuba Gooding, Jr.
He speaks from the podium without notes and is never rattled. His simple message about becoming the product of your own imagination and returning to Christian values, rings loud to conservative Republican caucus attendees who trek out out on a cold January night to sit with their neighbors and pick the candidates that will duke it out in the primaries of New Hampshire and South Carolina.
The caucuses are built for insurgents. Iowa launched Mike Huckabee into the lead four years ago.
Whether or not Carson, who has never run for office, can win doesn’t matter at this point. We know that there will be credible a medical doctor standing at the podium in the Republican debates talking about healthcare, singing the praises of doctors and reminding the audience that there were five physicians who signed the Constitution.
Benjamin Solomon Carson
Benjamin Solomon Carson was born in Detroit, Michigan, in 1951. He grew up with a little brother and a single mom as the car industry began to implode and Detroit became a tough city. Mom took three jobs. He was a terrible student. In fact, he was at the bottom of his class. He was aggressive and sometimes violent and headed for trouble.
As he tells the story, his mother took charge and made him and his brother turn off the television and turn in two book reports to her each week. They hated it, but soon Carson discovered he liked books and imagined who he could become. He also became a top student.
With the help of some great high school teachers, Carson graduated with honors and got into Yale University to study psychology. It was at Yale that he met his future wife, Lacrena “Candy” Rustin. After graduating in 1973, he entered the University of Michigan Medical School.
Medical Superstar
After earning a medical degree in 1977 he entered Johns Hopkin’s residency program. His skill level grew rapidly and by 1982 Carson was the chief neurosurgery resident. By age 33 Carson had become the youngest Director of Pediatric Neurosurgery ever at Johns Hopkins Hospital.
He was also the first African American to hold that post.
As a surgeon he is probably most famous for planning and managing the first separation of conjoined twins connected through major blood vessels in the brain.
Carson has received more than 50 honorary doctorate degrees and is a member of the Alpha Honor Medical Society, the Horatio Alger Society of Distinguished Americans and sits on the boards of numerous business and education boards.
Dr. Carson is a powerful symbol for inner city children and has taken the time to visit schools, businesses and hospitals across the country telling his story. In 1994, he and Candy founded the Carson Scholar Fund. The foundation grants scholarships to young students and promotes reading in the younger grades.
In 2001, CNN and Time magazine named him as one of the nation’s 20 foremost physicians and scientists and the Library of Congress selected him as one of 89 “Living Legends.” In 2006, he received the Spingarn Medal, the NAACP’s highest honor. In 2008, President Bush awarded Carson the Ford’s Theater Lincoln Medal and the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the U.S. highest civilian honors.
In 2002, Carson developed prostate cancer and slowed down his medical career. His attention turned to politics.
The Politics
This is where the politics stand for Carson with the Iowa Republican caucuses ten month away.
Early polling tracked by Real Clear Politics shows that he is currently ahead of three U.S. Senators—Rand Paul, Rick Rubio and Ted Cruz—and three current or former governors, Chris Christie, Bobby Jindal and Rick Perry. He currently trails only Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker and former Governors Jeb Bush and Mike Huckabee.
Polls don’t mean much now, but credibility brings campaign contributions and activist ground troops for get-out-the-vote efforts.
A Surprise Waiting to Happen
Barnes wrote on January 26, 2015 that the Republican “political class” will be in for a surprise because Carson is ahead in organizing a well-financed and unique campaign operation.
“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, ” wrote Barnes.
Carson’s Base
But, continued Barnes, “Carson is no Herman Cain.” Cain, like Carson, an African-American, is a Georgia businessman who ran for the Republican 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.”
Carson’s base adds up to more than 1.2 million names that were collected through the “Save Our Healthcare” project of the American Legacy PAC and more than 530, 000 names his campaign intends to “rent” from the Draft Carson committee.
Barnes’ Four Tests
Barnes says Carson has to pass four tests.
Appealing Candidate
First, Barnes notes that Carson is an appealing, likeable and calm candidate. People close to Carson say they’ve never seen him get angry. He says that Carson is a “real deal” economic, social and foreign policy conservative. Carson believes in American Exceptionalism, saying, “We don’t really want another nation at the pinnacle of the world that is not as benign as we are.” He’s pro-life, opposed to gay marriage, “eager” to reduce welfare dependency and reform the tax code.
Carson, who voted twice for Jimmy Carter, says listening to Ronald Reagan changed his mind and he became an independent. In November 2014, he changed his party affiliation to Republican because, pragmatically, he said he has to run in one party. In One Nation he wrote: “Washington, D.C., is dysfunctional today because the primary two political parties have become opponents instead of teammates with different approaches to the same goal.”
Credibility
His second test, according to Barnes, is about credibility and overcoming the “implausibility of a brain surgeon as president.”
Carson is not shy about being a surgeon. “We need doctors, we need scientists, engineers, ” he told the prayer breakfast when noting that five signers of the Constitution were physicians.
Doctors are the “most highly educated group in the nation, trained to make decisions based on facts rather than emotion, ” Carson wrote. “They tend to be excellent with numbers, very concerned about the welfare of others, and accustomed to hard work.”
His plausibility will be tested in televised debates and Terry Giles, the head of his campaign, says the Carson campaign will produce a series of policy papers. “He is looking to change the country…. We’ll actually have a plan…to move the country back to where it was, ” Giles told Barnes.
Gaffe Avoidance
Carson’s third test, and so far his most difficult one, is to avoid gaffes.
“That’s been a problem, ” wrote Barnes. He said if you google “Ben Carson gaffes” you will find a “lengthy file.” From saying that straight men returning from prison as homosexuals prove that homosexuality is a choice to equating America under Obama with Nazi Germany and saying that Obamacare is the worst thing since slavery, the good doctor will continue to have a lot of explaining to do. In politics, if you are explaining yourself, you are losing.
Organization
The last test is in putting together a great campaign organization. Giles was once a criminal defense attorney who defended Richard Pryor. Giles told Barnes they will avoid hiring Republicans consultants who move from “campaign to campaign” like mercenaries.
According to Giles, “Ben feels the road [to the White House] has been laid out for him by divine guidance.” Carson speaks often about a godless government and the first thing he asks potential supporters to do on his website, is to pray.
This Isn’t Brain Surgery
Can Carson win the nomination? Barnes wrote that, “It’s unlikely, yet possible. Let’s call him an underdog. Stranger things may have happened in politics, though I can’t recall one.”
Winning the Republican nomination is a different animal than winning the federal Electoral College with 50 separate campaigns in every state. But a few highly organized activists in a primary with a field of divided candidates can swing enough delegates and inspire mid-January Iowa caucus attendees to snatch a victory or a surprisingly strong showing. Then other candidates begin to drop out, the money and party activists coalesce and the field narrows down to a couple of candidates.
If he can get nominated by the Republicans, can he beat Hillary Clinton or another Democrat?
Giles told Barnes he thinks Carson can win 25% to 40% of the black vote. Draft-Ben leaders say they have “run the numbers” and found that Carson would easily win with 17% of the black vote in swing states.
Carson is a quixotic underdog, but is well equipped, organized and financed to identify supportive delegates and supporters and get them out to the caucuses and polling booth for the primaries.
After all, politics isn’t brain surgery.
