Posted on 02/06/2016 1:13:18 PM PST by GodGunsGuts
In an effort to draw attention to his Kim Kardashian-style vanity campaign, Ben Carson took his contrived outrage mongering against Cruz to a new level yesterday. During one of his numerous media appearances over the past three days, which is more actual campaigning than he’s done for the past few months while he took a hiatus to sell books, Carson compared Cruz’s behavior in Iowa to Hillary following the Benghazi tragedy.
Enough is enough.
If Carson wants to talk about the depths of deception and dishonesty he should “start looking at the man in the mirror.”
I was born and bred in Baltimore and grew up in the shadow of Dr. Carson’s stupendous reputation as ‘America’s Surgeon.’ I’ve never thought anything but admirable sentiments towards him, but his behavior this week reveals a man who is either running a scam or should be disqualified from running for office due to incompetency.
A few months ago, when Donald Trump referred to Carson as pathological and compared him to a child molester, Carson had nothing to say. He was completely impotent. And in fact, his numbers tanked shortly thereafter. Yet, when Cruz’s campaign took Carson’s absurd and bizarre campaign statement about going home to Florida as a sign he was dropping out of the race, Carson went nuclear. And despite Cruz’s gracious apology, Carson accepted it… but then went on the media circuit savaging him.
What gives?
The definition of a coward is someone who “lacks the courage to do or endure dangerous or unpleasant things.” When facing Donald Trump, Carson knew he would endure unpleasant things by confronting him. Whereas when confronting Cruz, Carson knows that he will never attack him personally. Moreover, he knows that because the media is out to destroy Cruz they will grant him an audience for his languishing campaign and slurp up any allegation he launches at him, irrespective of the facts or soundness of his charge.
What is more insidious is that Carson is using this attack to further obfuscate his seemingly scam campaign and in doing so he is actually proving the point of the Cruz campaign and why they thought he was dropping out in the first place.
Why did Cruz and other campaigns believe that “returning to Florida” might signal he was dropping out? First, because he told the media before the caucuses were even finished of his odd post-caucus plans. Even two of Carson's former aides have gone on the record stating this was a mistake and all but clearing the Cruz campaign. Add to that the fact that Carson has not, until mid-day Friday, held a single event in New Hampshire and South Carolina during the heat of the campaign. Just this week, he has let go 50 “non-essential” employees (non-essential, just like federal bureaucracies!). He has, by any objective measure, dropped out of the race. Yet, he is only in the race to the extent that he is attacking Cruz on TV and raising money off his feigned outrage…..not so that he can use that money to campaign for the nomination, but continue reinvesting it in his direct mail vendors. Thus, the circuitous cycle of a what appears to be a scam operation that has raised almost $54 million – more than any other candidate except Bernie Sanders – but burn through 88% of it and poll roughly the same as Carly Fiorina in New Hampshire.
There are other candidates who have not performed well, such as Mike Huckabee, Rick Santorum, and Carly Fiorina. But those candidates, especially after they tanked in the polls, didn’t raise significant sums of money and used the few dollars to barnstorm through the early states. Rick Santorum actually had more campaign stops in the final week of the Iowa campaign than anyone else. Where has Ben Carson been?
What appears to be the actual deception and dishonesty here is Ben Carson’s fleecing of his donors and supporters. The media is still not interested in asking Carson tough questions as to why he has not made it back to the early states. He stopped in North Carolina yesterday but didn’t go to South Carolina, which holds its primary sooner. What has he done with all the money he raised?
In some sense Ben Carson is right about Ted Cruz. Carson’s behavior this week demonstrates that indeed Cruz does owe him another apology. Cruz should apologize for thinking Carson would respond to his apology honorably. As such, the only logical conclusion anyone could make from such a bizarre campaign announcement, which came on the heels of months of sparse campaigning in Iowa, is that he was dropping out of the race. Nobody would ever suspect he’d spend the week doing vanity media, raising millions of dollars, and not stepping foot in New Hampshire or South Carolina..unless the entire campaign served as nothing but the sole purpose of raising money. There isn’t a strategy on earth where a candidate can finish fourth in Iowa, skip most campaign days leading up to New Hampshire and South Carolina, and then somehow take the rest of the nation by storm.
It’s a real shame what politics can do to people. Unfortunately, while Carson has been slow to pick up the policy knowledge of a career politician he has been quick to learn the worst acts of chicanery that are characteristic of career politicians.
Had Cruz run such a vanity campaign, raising millions spending most of it on fundraising mailers while declining to run a serious campaign, the media would be asking tough questions. Had Cruz announced he couldn’t find the nearest dry cleaners and was returning home for a week to get some clothes, thereby missing the critical campaign days in the important states, he would have been the subject of endless parodies on Saturday Night Live.
But given that Carson is using his own exercise in self-parody to project dishonesty on Ted Cruz, the media is stone silent. And meanwhile, Ben Carson is having the time of his life.
One thing he did learn from strump, is how to play the media...he knows there is nothing to it, but they too must protect the black boy.
Shame on Carson, shame, shame. Article is correct, Cruz apologized (even thought he did no wrong) which usually is the end of any misunderstanding, but no. Carson knows he can carry this on forever by insulting Cruz further and Cruz will never respond in like because Carson is the Black boy.
The bottom line of Carson's campaign now is I'm the black boy you can't touch me.
Armstrong connected to FartTheCon? You don’t say..... hmmmmm
Neither the Carson campaign nor CNN ever said Carson was quitting. That’s the central fact that you just can’t obfuscate away. If Ted gave a weaselly non-apology apology, so much the worse. Keep digging.
Read the timeline. It is so easy to follow even a caveman can understand it:
http://constitution.com/ted-cruz-didnt-lie-entire-carsoncruz-fight-timeline/
I think Cruz turns this to his advantage tonite.
I hope he’s got something ready. Because as sure as FR’s He Man Cruz Haters Club sounds like a broken record you know there’ll be at least a couple of questions devoted to this non-issue with the sole intention of inviting a pile on.
Read it. Doesn’t change the fact that there was no such announcement from Carson. All the chatter on CNN was clearly just commentators’ opinion, and the Cruzers turned that into “suspending his campaign”, something the Carson camp never said.
He will. Trump will pay a price for his hyperbole along with Carson.
What Cruz’s campaign did was wrong and someone should be fired. Carson is overplaying it and has lost credibility.
Obviously you just don’t want to give Cruz the benefit of the doubt, even with the mountain of evidence his campaign acted in good faith.
I am coming across conflicting reports as to who started the rumor about Carson quitting. Was it CNN and Rubio or was it Cruz?
Horowitz and Conservative Review are Mark Levin’s hacks. Of course they are going to bash Dr. Carson. He’s speaking out against their Sainted boy Cruz.
Not that many people like to admit to being duped.
And even fewer like to announce who they voted for.
There is no such evidence, and nothing Cruz has said or done leads me to have any good faith in him.
I watched the report and clearly, though not saying the words “Carson is quitting” they said it in every other way...”no person serious about running does this”, it is very curious, he is not going to New Hampshire, he is not going to South Carolina, he is giving an announcement regardless of the outcome...on and on like that. People, especially politicians “speak” with their ACTIONS while saying different things with their words. They are so wily that we have to extrapolate by what they do. The media were clearly indicating and interpreting these behaviors as “quitting behaviors.”
If you saw a sports team you were betting on send in their second tier players, knew they were already packing their gear up while the game was on, noticed their bus warming up outside the arena...would you change your bet if you still could? He signaled quitting, whether by accident or design and it was up to him to correct that impression that he gave. He or his staff goofed up.
He could have used Obama Admin lying about IRS, Obama admin lying about Fast and Furious or any of the other lies this Administration has perpetrated against America. He could have used Hillary lying about her server....but no, he had to try to use Benghazi.
Horowitz’s article lost me with the first sentence. I don’t don’t respect ad hominem attacks.
What gives? the answer is campaign advisors. Carson had 3 types of advisors:
1. The money raisers who told him what to say and do to raise money. They raised a lot of money and kept a big chunk for themselves.
2. Armstrong Williams, Carson’s close friend of many years and a reliable conservative; but also a unique personality.
3. Traditional campaign staff.
There was friction between the 3 groups. Many of group #1 and group #3 quit.
The result was that Carson now depends more than any canidate should on one advisor who is a good person, but not suited for the massive task Carson faces.
That Carson could not more effectively choose and manage his staff is a measure of his readiness to be President.
The single most important job of a President is in choosing the right staff and keeping them going in the same direction.
Pathetic
Let me put it plainly, and I wish that the Cruz campaign had. Carson's campaign for some idiotic reason put out language that to any reasonable political observer (Given the state of his campaign) would interpret as him quitting the race. His campaign took advantage of it.
People on this site are constantly complaining that the Republicans (see McCain, Romney) never want to take it to the Democrats. Every election we hear from FReepers why didn't our candidate go for the throat. I want a candidate who's smart enough to recognize an opening and has no qualms about going in to debowel their opponent.
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