Taking a page out of Trump’s campaign manual, seeing how well it has served Trump, Republican presidential wannabe Ben Carson will continue to say what comes to mind — “straight talk” — outrageous or incorrect as it may be. Damn the Democratic torpedoes, damn the facts, damn the liberal media and, most of all, damn the politically correct masses.
That is the essence of the message Carson and his team are putting out after Carson’s “unleashment” has translated into an “upward trajectory in the polls,” trailing Trump by a mere six points, gaining “huge leads over experienced politicians like former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush and Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), raising “a staggering $20 million in the third quarter,” and drawing bigger and bigger crowds.
Carson’s “straight talk” (no pun intended) began about six months ago when the accomplished neurosurgeon declared that being gay is “absolutely” a choice. He bases his “diagnosis” on the observation that “a lot of people who go into prison straight, are gay when they come out.”
That was after his October 2013 remarks that “Obamacare is really…the worst thing that has happened in this nation since slavery.”
Carson walked back some of these and other more recent outrageous remarks, such as his suggestion that a Muslim should not be commander in chief.
However, he has not apologized for nor walked back the most recent comments following the mass shooting at Umpqua Community College in Oregon: Insensitive comments that appeared to blame the victims and his insistence that, as The Hill puts it, “the Holocaust might have been avoided if the Jews in Germany had been armed.”
The Hill writes, “Carson has refused to temper any of his remarks on guns.”
And why should he?
Again, the Hill, “It has worked so far: Carson is excelling in every measurable aspect of the presidential race.”
His base loves it.
The Hill:
“Yesterday in Tennessee I did a book signing in Knoxville and there were thousands of people there … standing in line for three or four hours for two seconds [with me],” Carson said. “The message they’re all saying is, ‘Don’t stop. Don’t give in to the left-wing media. Go ahead and be yourself and talk about what we the people want to hear about.’”
As to the biased, “embarrassing” media that is out to get him:
“We need the media to develop a conscience and start working for the people and stop having their own ideological agenda,” Carson said on Monday.
.“I hope I didn’t give the impression that they’re all bad, but there’s a substantial majority that have an agenda,” he continued. “I’m still hopeful that the media will come to their senses … and step up to the plate with some real integrity. I haven’t given up on them. If I had, I wouldn’t say anything about them. It’s just like a child that you want to correct. If you don’t say anything, they become unruly.”
How about those who don’t accept his comments on guns and the Holocaust?
Well, “that says something about them, that doesn’t say something about me,” Carson says, according to The Hill, calling it “immaturity.”
Yes, Dr. Carson is learning well from Donald Trump. “That’s the kind of unapologetic style Carson says his supporters can expect going forward, and that the press should get used to” says The Hill.
Just proof that even a soft-spoken, retiring flower can raise the passion and ignite the fire and the ire of a willing, unenlightened base provided the right (dog) whistle is used.
If Dr. Ben Carson manages to surpass Donald Trump in effrontery, he may well become the GOP 2016 presidential nominee.
Sources: Poltico.com; The Hill
Lead photo: Christopher Halloran / Shutterstock.com
