[ilovesarah2012]

Full headline:

Ben Carson emerges as sleeper threat in N.H. Republican Party event straw poll, as Rand Paul and Chris Christie lead the field

[C. Edmund Wright]

Straw polls at this point? Meaningless. Why do we let straw polls in NH and Iowa dictate our entire lives. When this country fails, it will be self inflicted wounds that do it…..evil on the liberal side and stupidity on the conservative side.

[Vaquero]

I could proudly pull a lever for Dr Carson in the general. No problem there.

[Sirius Lee]

I like Dr. Carson, but like Christie’s, his anti-gun stance is a deal breaker for me.

[who knows what evil?]

Letting those damned communists and potheads in Red Hampshire set the table for our Presidential candidates in an abomination. Puke.

[9YearLurker]

A good reminder of how vulnerable conservatives are to

1) splitting their vote for fringe candidates, and

2) climbing on the bandwagon of a minority Republican without any sort of voting record to show just how conservative they actually are. (Hello Colin, Condi, Allen “Pigford” West, and Herman McCain)

If Ben Carson is seriously interested in politics he should have run for congress this year, then governor—or at the very least taken on a senate race.

[PIF]

Carlson may talk a good game, but remember he has never governed — did we not just elect one of them recently - twice? Not a good bet - he'd be in over his head five minutes after being sworn in - but in only took seconds for that to happen to the current resident President, so it would be a small step up in that sense.

[bert]

Why is the loser Rick Santorum running? Does he have a core base of sympathetic losers that believe this pretender is a viable candidate?

BTW...... the ticket is Perry/Carson or Walker /Carson.

Carson as VP will replace the Obamacare disaster. It might not need a brain surgeon to do the job, but if the best brain surgeon in the world volunteers, he should be given the job

[Travis McGee]

I won’t vote for a gun control advocate, period.

[VRW Conspirator]

That and $4.75 will get you a cup of coffee at Starbucks.

[Jim Noble]

So now both the GOP and the Democrats are in the business of looking for heroes who can make a good speech and who will be overwhelmed by the complexity of running the Executive Branch as their first job in political administration.

[DoodleDawg]

Isn’t 8 years of amateur hour in the Oval Office enough?

[Theodore R.]

I read that Dr. Carson doesn’t support the Second Amendment. Is this true?

[Da Coyote]

I will vote for him in a heartbeat.

[Caipirabob]

Please read and assess Doctor Carson's position's on Gun Control.

"Dr. Benjamin Carson said: "It depends on where you live. I think if you live in the midst of a lot of people, and I’m afraid that that semi-automatic weapon is going to fall into the hands of a crazy person, I would rather you not have it."

I can't support someone who would press this position into policy and then law.

[BeadCounter]

Some of Rand’s ideas are good but unmistakenly, Paul-Bots are making an end run on some of these ballots, I hope Paul-Bots are better than Liberal-Tarians. Rand Paul certainly is very pro-life, http://nationalprolifealliance.com/tpfh_petition.aspx?pid=1130 .

[Darren McCarty]

No gun grabbers. If Ben Carson is running for Surgeon General, I’ll think about it. President? No way.

[Teacher317]

Bill Clinton was not the DEM front-runner in NH in 1992.
Goerge W Bush was not the GOP front-runner in NH in 2000.
Barack Obama was not the DEM front-runner in NH in 2008.

And those are the actual PRIMARIES, not straw polls done a year in advance.

NH and Iowa mean very little when it comes to naming the actual eventual candidate. They merely weed out a few of the names that most certainly will NOT be the eventual candidate (with huge assists from the MSM, of course)

[BobL]

There are basically 3 issues now that anyone wanting to be thought of as a legitimate conservative HAD BETTER have clear, straight, answers to. They are:

1) Abortion
2) Amnesty
3) Gun Control

If you throw yourself into the political arena, whether or not you’ve declared for anything, you BETTER have acceptable answers on these, or that calls into question whether you’ve done any prep work at all.

In the case of Carson - I understand where he’s coming from, both Detroit and Baltimore (and I do know JHU there, as I once crossed an unmarked demarcation zone there and barely made it back). It is scary to see big, threatening, (race other than white) people. It is scarier to think they may have guns. Outlaw the guns, they are not as scary (even though, of course, they are just as likely to have guns).

Carson is 62. He’s had MORE DECADES than most people considering political office to figure this stuff out, particularly the Constitution. Maybe he could be dragged into reading the Second Amendment, and maybe there would still be enough Republicans in Congress to stop him if he doesn’t bother.

But we can do better. He will also be nominating people for the courts. On what will he base those nominations on? Not interpretation of the Constitution - obviously, then what? ABA rating? Not good a sign.

Too bad. If he was grounded in the Constitution, a simple answer like “Read the Second Amendment” would have launched him straight towards the White House (at least initially).

[kenf3]

I would feel better if Sen Cruz was at top of this list.

[BobL]

One other MAJOR COMMENT:

Actually the BIGGEST NEWS from that straw poll was just how bad Christie did. Just by reading the article, it was CLEAR that the event was TOTALLY RIGGED so that Christie would walk away with it...yet another victory in his coronation march.