There were only three candidates at the Iowa Caucuses who outperformed their Real Clear Politics polling average: Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio, and Ben Carson.
So even if some plot was pulled off it didn’t hurt Carson.
Let’s walk through the timeline. This story begins at about 6:29 p.m. central time, about a half hour before the caucuses.
*6:29 CT Rubio supporter @ConradClose sends out tweet (has since deleted the tweet):
Rubio campaign pushing the narrative hard that Carson is dropping out. Obviously looking to pick up votes from Carson.
http://politistick.com/uh-oh-was-marco-rubio-guilty-in-the-ben-carson-dropout-rumor/
(Not sure how many more Carson voters Cruz could get because he had already taken a lot of them. But Wes Enos, a Rubio supporter, said on caucus night that he was really depending on getting some of those Carson people because if they hadn’t gone to Cruz by now they wanted somebody with a softer, gentler demeanor. So this isn’t out of left field.
This tweet at 6:29 p.m. from @ConradClose was the first time we ever heard of this Carson story that we know of, a half hour before the caucuses by a guy on Twitter who outed himself as a Rubio supporter and since has deleted the tweet.)
*6:43 CT – CNN’s Chris Moody:
Carson won’t go to NH/SC, but instead will head home to Florida for some R&R. He’ll be in DC Thursday for the National Prayer Breakfast.
https://twitter.com/moody/status/694320149432651776
*6:43 CNN’s Chris Moody:
Ben Carson’s campaign tells me he plans to stay in the race beyond Iowa no matter what the results are tonight.
https://twitter.com/moody/status/694320317091569667
(So after these two tweets it would seem to be settled. There is no story. People are looking at those tweets and thinking ‘this doesn’t make any sense,’ and the Cruz campaign looks completely disingenuous and like they should never have ran with this information. Then one minute later here’s the audio of the top two political reporters at CNN, Jake Tapper and Dana Bash…)
*6:44 CNN Breaks the Story on TV:
(Did you hear any follow-up on the air about the Chris Moody tweet that Carson was going to stay in the race? No. In fact,while Tapper and Bash were talking and it said Carson was going to take a break after Iowa. They are the ones who didn’t even mention their own tweet. Can someone please explain to me why Ted Cruz is more responsible for the integrity of CNN’s own reporting than CNN is? And who has more cachet at CNN, Tapper and Bash or Moody? The former.)
*6:50 CNN The Lead tweets out the Story:
https://twitter.com/theleadcnn/status/694321966677938177
(Seven minutes after Moody’s clarifying tweet and still no follow through from CNN. This is now the second time they have put out the first part of Moody’s tweet about Carson but not the second. Apparently the role of ombudsman at CNN must be added to Ted Cruz’s tasks.)
*6:52 CNNPolitics tweets out the story
https://twitter.com/cnnpolitics/status/694322494262644736
(Now we are almost 10 minutes after the Moody tweets, and this account has almost a half million followers. They are still staying Ben Carson plans to take a break from campaigning. This Twitter page has more than 10 times the followers of Chris Moody.)
*6:56 First Cruz Email:
“Press Reporting Carson to Take Break After Iowa
Breaking News. The press is reporting that Dr. Ben Carson is taking time off from the campaign trail after Iowa and making a big announcement next week. Please inform any Carson caucus goers of this news and urge them to caucus for Ted Cruz.”
(Did it say Ben Carson was dropping out? No. That’s not what it said. It said exactly what these news reporters were saying.)
*7:00 Cruz Sends text message:
https://twitter.com/amanbatheja/status/694324806385168384/photo/1
(A Texas Tribune reporter Tweets out that text and comments about how smart it was for Cruz to get that message out. Was there anything in there that was intellectually dishonest? We know now that it wasn’t accurate but all the Cruz campaign did was go off CNN’s own reporting.)
*7:13 Second Cruz Email:
“CNN Reporting Ben Carson Will Stop Campaigning After Iowa
CNN is reporting that Ben Carson will stop campaigning after Iowa. Make sure to tell all of your peers at the caucus supporting Carson that they should coalesce around the true conservative who will be in the race for the long haul: TED CRUZ!”
(A lot of places have already voted by now, especially in the more populated urban areas. And CNN’s most popular platforms have not changed their narrative that Carson will stop campaigning. )
Then, we have this unfortunate wrong conclusion taken by Congressman Steve King ( who later apologized for it )
*7:20 Steve King:
Carson looks like he is out. Iowans need to know before they vote. Most will go to Cruz, I hope.
https://twitter.com/SteveKingIA/status/694329606174683136
*7:30 Chris Moody:
Folks, Ben Carson is just making a brief stop at home in FL tonight and campaign says he’ll be back on the campaign trail by Wednesday.
https://twitter.com/moody/status/694332007048953856
This is more than a half hour after Moody’s first tweets. But I’m going through this nothing burger of a story because we want to make sure we didn’t cross any line. I like moral absolutes, too. And we’ve all been burned before. So why did Ted Cruz apologize to Ben Carson?
The media gave you a story and you tried to work it to your advantage. It’s a competition. We aren’t playing tiddlywinks. There is only one winner. This is blood sport. This is how we do civil war in America. Why does Ted Cruz have to double check CNN’s story for them?
Chris Moody looked like he tried to do the right thing and be a conscientious reporter but his own network wanted to run with the only half of the story that looked to be salacious.
And in the CNN audio clip they used the term “unusual” five times in a minute. Let’s not insult each other’s intelligence here. That looks like intimating the behavior of someone who doesn’t plan on staying in the race for very long.
So why did Ted Cruz apologize? Frankly, he’s just a nicer person than I am. You know what my apology would have been? Scoreboard, baby. There ain’t no argument scoreboard doesn’t win. See you in New Hampshire.
But Cruz was upset his team ran with this so he called Ben Carson to apologize. Now how has Carson reacted to that? Well, after accepting Cruz’s private apology he’s done a media blitz about this that includes more television appearances than he did campaign stops in the entire month before the Iowa Caucuses.
Of course Ted Cruz haters will chalk this up to MALICIOUS INTENTIONS. Based on the above evidence, it was simply an unfortunate case of mis-understandings, wrong impressions, and missed messages.
Finally, I DO NOT BELIEVE that this affected Ben Carson’s results at all. I don’t think Carson’s supporters are so dumb as to not double check any rumors with his campaign before jumping to any conclusions and basing their votes on it. At least they owe themselves that.
No one who can think clearly believes that Carson was going to suspend his campaign at the very beginning of the start of the Iowa caucus. It defies logic.
That's an assumption. According to reports I've heard, Carson campaigners were pissed at Carson for not telling him he had dropped and went over to Cruz in mass at certain precincts. All Cruz needed was 4 people to be fooled at each caucus.
Wonderful, fact-filled post.
I’m going to read it again just to reassure myself that there are still sane people here.