“Carson Thrives Because Of, Not In Spite Of, Bizarre Rhetoric”: Comments About Muslims, Hitler And Slavery Attractive To Likely Republican Caucusgoers
For much of the summer, Donald Trump dominated Republican presidential polls everywhere, and Iowa was no different. The New York developer may not seem like a natural fit for Hawkeye State conservatives, but statewide surveys consistently showed Trump leading the GOP field.
This week, however, he’s been replaced. A Quinnipiac poll in Iowa, released yesterday, showed retired right-wing neurosurgeon Ben Carson leading Trump, 28% to 20%, a big swing from early September, when Quinnipiac showed Trump ahead in Iowa by six points.
Today, a Des Moines Register/Bloomberg Politics poll offers very similar results, with Carson leading Trump in the Hawkeye State, 28% to 19%. In August, the same poll showed Trump up by five.
But this line in the DMR’s report on the poll results stood out for me:
Even Carson’s most controversial comments – about Muslims, Hitler and slavery – are attractive to likely Republican caucusgoers.
This isn’t a conclusion drawn through inference; the poll actually asked Iowa Republicans for their thoughts on some of Carson’s … shall we say … eccentricities.
The poll told GOP respondents, “I’m going to mention some things people have said about Ben Carson. Regardless of whether you support him for president, please tell me for each if this is something that you find very attractive about him, mostly attractive, mostly unattractive, or very unattractive.”
If we combine “very attractive” and “mostly attractive” responses, these are Iowa Republicans’ positive feelings about Ben Carson:
1.“He is not a career politician”: 85%
2.“He has no experience in foreign policy”: 42%
3.“He was highly successful as a neurosurgeon”: 88%
4.“He has said the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare, is the worst thing since slavery”: 81%
5.”He has an inspirational personal story”: 85%
6.“He has raised questions about whether a Muslim should ever be president of the United States”: 73%
7.“He has said he would be guided by his faith in God”: 89%
8.“He has said that Hitler might not have been as successful if the people had been armed”: 77%
9.“He approaches issues with common sense”: 96%
10.“He has conducted research on tissue from aborted fetuses”: 31%
In case it’s not obvious, pay particular attention to numbers 4, 6, and 8.
For many political observers, one of the questions surrounding Carson’s candidacy for months has been how he intends to overcome some of the ridiculous rhetoric about his off-the-wall beliefs. But this badly misses the point – Iowa Republicans like and agree with Carson’s ridiculous rhetoric about his off-the-wall beliefs.
By: Steve Benen, The Madow Blog, October 23, 2015
“More Irrational Chatter”: Ben Carson Thinks Hillary Clinton Is Going To Jail
Ben Carson has predicted many things in his day. He has claimed that End Times were nigh. He has said that a new Hitler could rise. And yesterday, he said that Hillary Clinton will end up behind bars for her actions as Secretary of State.
“Hillary can well be in jail and it’s hard to run from there,” Carson said bemusedly during an interview on The John Gibson Show. He claimed that Joe Biden would be the Democratic nominee less than an hour before the vice president announced that he would not seek the nomination. Gibson’s show runs from noon to 3 p.m.; the announcement came a little before 1 p.m.
“I would think that it would be Biden,” Carson said in his traditional deep-toned whisper, when asked who he would place his bets on.
After Gibson began laughing at the suggestion that Clinton would be in jail, he questioned whether Carson believed that an indictable offense would be discovered in Thursday’s Benghazi hearing.
“Or the computer server—uh—problems,” Carson drawled. Then he started walking it back on the spot.
“I think she may not be actually in jail but I think the controversy swirling around that will have an extremely damaging effect.”
Carson’s campaign did not respond when I asked what Carson had thought of the hearing, now entering its sixth hour, so far.
He spent the remainder of the interview discussing Paul Ryan’s bid for Speaker of the House, which he said he would support if the various caucuses did likewise, and suggested that saying President George W. Bush was responsible for 9/11 is a “blame game” that is not productive.
“Was there chatter going on about terrorist activity?” Carson asked, then proceeded to answer himself. “Of course there was. But not the kind of specific thing that would allow you to, through executive action, prevent such a thing. He certainly went into overdrive after that.”
The campaign has not provided clarification on what he meant by “chatter.”
By: Gideon Resnick, The Daily Beast, October 22, 2015
“Did Ben Carson Already Break Campaign Law?”: Campaign Law Bars Corporations From Donating To Presidential Candidates
On October 9, Ben Carson appeared at the National Press Club to promote his new book. His campaign manager, Barry Bennett, told The Daily Beast that Carson’s publishing company set up the event and paid for his transportation to D.C. to speak there.
And just like that, Carson may have violated campaign finance law.
The Republican presidential candidate made headlines last week when ABC News reported that he would suspend his campaign for a tour promoting his new book, A More Perfect Union: What We The People Can Do To Reclaim Our Constitutional Liberties.
Carson’s team took issue with the story, saying his presidential campaign is still very much underway even though he’s making room in his schedule to sell books.
But here’s where it gets complicated.
Carson’s publishing company Sentinel—an imprint of Penguin publishing—is paying for the tour, according to Bennett. And that puts the former neurosurgeon in a tight spot.
Campaign law bars corporations from donating to presidential candidates—whether those donations are checks or in-kind contributions of goods or services. “Campaigns may not accept contributions made from the general treasury funds of corporations, labor organizations or national banks,” reads the FEC’s guide for candidates. (PDF)
That’s why it gets dicey (though not unheard of) when presidential candidates go on book tours; if the hotel stays, restaurant meals, and publicity associated with a book tour are paid for by the publishing company, candidates can get in trouble if they hold campaign events while traveling on that company’s dime.
According to Larry Noble, senior counsel for the Campaign Legal Center, Carson may have already broken that rule.
He said that the October 9 stop at the Press Club looked suspiciously campaign-related. The event was billed it as “NPC Luncheon with Dr. Ben Carson, Author and Presidential Candidate.” More troublesome is the fact that Carson used the appearance to explicitly tout his presidential ambitions.
“[U]nder a Carson administration, if another country attacks us with a cyber attack, they’re going to get hit so hard, it’s going to take them a long time to recover,” he said, according to a transcript of the speech (PDF) he gave there.
After the candidate’s remarks, National Press Club President John Hughes questioned Carson more about what he would do if he gets elected. Carson said he would work with Turkey to establish a no-fly zone over Syria and that he would call a joint session of Congress to tell them to “recognize that the people are at the pinnacle, and that we work for them, and they don’t work for us.”
All of that sounds way more like presidential politicking than book-selling.
“Even though he never says ‘Vote for me as president,’ he’s clearly discussing his candidacy. What he’s supposed to say in that situation is, ‘I‘m really not here to discuss my campaign for president; I’m here to to discuss my book,’” Noble said.
That, of course, is not what Carson said.
Noble added that if another campaign filed a complaint with the FEC regarding Carson’s comments at the Press Club, the commission would likely take that complaint seriously.
“They’d at least need to take a look at it,” he said.
Carson is not under investigation by the FEC but formal complaints can be filed by any person who spots a potential violation. The FEC doesn’t comment on the activity of candidates and has noted in the past that there is always a possibility that matters related to the campaign could come before the commission.
Bennett said he doesn’t think Carson has broken any FEC rules.
“The book publisher has attorneys and we have attorneys,” he said. “It was all vetted.”
A publicity contact for Sentinel has not yet returned a request for comment. We also left a voicemail for Premiere Collectibles, which is billed as promoting his tour, and didn’t get a response by press time.
Carson’s Press Club comments aren’t the only part of his book tour to worry campaign finance law watchdogs. Bennett confirmed to The Daily Beast that from October 4 to October 11, the publisher paid for Carson’s transportation and lodging because he was promoting his book. During this time, the candidate made the rounds on cable TV, discussing current events and his presidential campaign.
“My view is that multiple appearances by a candidate on talk shows to discuss politics amounts to campaign activity and, consequently, that the campaign should have paid some of the transportation and lodging expenses,” emailed Paul Ryan, a spokesperson for the Campaign Legal Center.
Ryan added that similar situations have divided the FEC.
“At any rate, the commission deadlocked so there’s no formal guidance from the commission on this point of law,” he said.
That means Carson stepped into a legal gray area every time he did interviews with political reporters during the week of October 4. Two days later he appeared on Fox and Friends to discuss his campaign.
“I don’t want to be the establishment candidate,” he said. “What has the establishment really gotten us?”
He added that he wouldn’t have met with the families of victims of the Umpqua shooting if he were president.
“I would have so many things on my agenda that I would go to the next one,” he said.
He also appeared on The View on October 6, The Kelly File later that day, and on Hannity on October 7.
This week Carson will juggle fundraising events and book tour stops in Texas, Oklahoma, Missouri, Kansas, Iowa, and Nebraska. On some days, like October 18, campaign events are wedged in between book tour stops. Next Sunday, Carson will promote his book in the Woodlands, Texas, at 2:30 p.m., hustle to a forum at a Baptist church in Plano at 5:25 p.m.—which is a campaign event—and get to San Antonio by 8 p.m. for another book stop. In an effort to avoid FEC violations, the campaign says staffers will only show up at the Plano pit stop.
“FEC rules and regulations call for the separation of campaign and non-campaign finances,” said Ying Ma, deputy communications director for the Carson campaign. “We’re trying to do our best to abide by all requirements. Campaign staff will be at campaign events. That’s what campaign staff do.”
By: Gideon Resnick and Betsy Woodruff, The Daily Beast, October 19, 2015
“If I Only Had A Gun…”: It’s Clear To Me Now, Jewish Civilians With Revolvers And Hunting Rifles Would Have Made All The Difference
Of course. It makes perfect sense. Why couldn’t I see it before?
There could never have been a Holocaust had the Jews been armed. Granted, the Nazis swept aside the armies of Poland and France like dandruff, and it took six years for Great Britain — later joined by Russia and the United States — to grind them down. But surely Jewish civilians with revolvers and hunting rifles would have made all the difference.
Much as I’d love to take credit for that insight, I can’t. No, it comes from presidential candidate Dr. Ben Carson in a recent interview with CNN. “I think the likelihood of Hitler being able to accomplish his goals would have been greatly diminished if the people had been armed,” Carson said.
This has become a recurrent theme on the political right, the idea that unarmed victims of violence are to blame for their own troubles. And not just in the Holocaust. Rush Limbaugh said two years ago that if African Americans had been armed, they wouldn’t have needed a Civil Rights Movement. The founder of so-called “Gun Appreciation Day” said, also two years ago, that had the Africans been armed, there could have been no slavery.
There’s more. When nine people recently died at a mass shooting in Oregon, Ted Nugent declared that any unarmed person thus killed is a spineless “loser.” Carson seems to agree. “I would not just stand there and let him shoot me,” he said. Or, as Clint Eastwood says in Unforgiven when Gene Hackman complains that he just shot an unarmed man: “Well, he should’ve armed himself…”
It’s so clear to me now. Guns don’t take lives, they save them. Guns make everything better. Carson is a surgeon, not an optometrist, but golly gosh, he’s sure opened my eyes.
As a friend recently observed, what if Trayvon Martin had had a gun? Then he could have killed the “creepy-ass cracker” who was stalking him. Surely, the court would have afforded him the same benefit of the doubt they gave George Zimmerman, right?
And what if the men on Titanic had been armed? That tragedy might have had a happier ending:
LOOKOUT
Iceberg dead ahead!
CAPTAIN
No time to port around it. Get your guns, men! We’re making ice cubes out of this sucker!
KATE WINSLET
Jack, is that a Colt in your pocket, or are you just glad to see me?
LEONARDO DICAPRIO
It’s a Colt, woman. Now, stand aside.
Hey, what if Jesus had been armed?
“Thou wisheth to nail me to what? I think not. Come on, punks. Maketh my day!”
The possibilities are endless. So I’ve taken the liberty of composing a new campaign song for Carson, to the tune of “If I Only Had a Heart” from The Wizard of Oz:
When a man’s an empty holster, no courage does he bolster
No confidence is won
What a difference he’d be makin’, he could finally stop his quakin’
If he only had a gun
He could stand a little straighter with that ultimate persuader
And wouldn’t that be fun?
He could put an end to static with a semiautomatic
If he only had a gun
Can’t you see, how it would be?
Woe would avoid his door
The crazy guy would pass him by
Or else he’d shoot — and shoot some more
Oh, the shootin’ he’d be doin’, and all the ballyhooin’
The way the folks would run
His life would be so merry in a world of open carry
If he only had a gun
If you think Carson might like the song, I would not mind at all if you shared it with him: http://www.bencarson.com/contact.
What’s that? You think I’ve lost my mind? You’re calling me crazy? Boy, that makes me so mad I can hardly control myself!
If I only had a gun…
By: Leonard Pitts, Jr., Columnist for The Miami Herald; The National Memo, October 19, 2015
“The Conspiracy Theorists And Doomsday Preppers”: Ben Carson, American Gun Advocates, And The Fantasy Of Individual Heroism
Chances are that you are not a hero. That is to say that you do your job and live your life, but seldom if ever are you called upon to do something extraordinary in a life-or-death moment, some spectacular act of bravery that calls upon otherworldy cunning and physical skill. Compared to a Hollywood action film, your life is rather mundane and ordinary. You don’t begin your week on Monday knowing that by Friday you will have leaped from explosions, taken down ninja death squads, or battled supervillains.
It’s fun to indulge those fantasies from time to time—with enough money, time, and training, maybe I could be Batman!—but most of us are level-headed enough to realize that they are just fantasies. They certainly shouldn’t be the source of judgments we make about our fellow human beings, let alone the basis for policymaking.
But not everyone agrees. Republican presidential candidate Ben Carson, for instance, has recently attracted a great deal of attention for saying that unlike those cowering sheep who were killed by a gunman in Roseburg, Oregon, he would have quickly organized his fellow victims-to-be and rushed the shooter. In the ensuing discussion, Carson’s similar views about the Holocaust came to light—that if the Jews had more guns and more gumption, they could have stood up to Hitler and, if not stopped the genocide entirely, at least … well, at least done something or other.
As a piece of historical analysis, this is positively deranged, as any historian will tell you. But it’s also widely shared on the right, not just when it comes to World War II in particular but as a way to understand the broader relationship between the individual and government. Take, for instance, this execrable op-ed on FoxNews.com from frequent on-air contributor Keith Ablow, which basically argues that the Holocaust happened because German Jews were too wimpy to rise up, find some guns, and do the job.
As Jacob Bacharach reminds us, plenty of Jews did fight back, not only in the Warsaw Ghetto uprising but among resistance forces spread throughout Europe in the places Germany occupied. And what happened to them? They mostly got slaughtered, because they were fighting against a vastly stronger force, the Wehrmacht. It took the combined might of the United States, the Soviet Union, Great Britain, and about 20 smaller countries to actually defeat the Nazis. But Carson and others want to believe the Jews could have done the job, too, if only they had some guts and a few bolt-action rifles.
And why might they think that? I’d suggest that it’s because their ideas are shaped by a particular kind of Hollywood fantasy, one in which individual heroism and ample firearms are the means by which enormous, sweeping problems can be solved.
Though it hasn’t gotten as much attention as it should in the coverage of his candidacy, Carson is succeeding in part because he is the candidate of a particular portion of the Republican fringe, the conspiracy theorists and doomsday preppers who watch Glenn Beck, listen to Alex Jones, and know that the apocalypse is around the corner. One of the key components of the ideology these people imbibe is not just that you’re on your own, but that on your own you can do anything. Society will disintegrate, vast conspiratorial forces are arrayed against you, jackbooted government thugs are about to come knocking at your door—but if you’ve got your AR-15 and a strong will, you can turn them all back and maintain our freedom. Not only that, the only reason it hasn’t happened yet is because the government knows and fears your potency.
This fantasy—at once maniacally paranoid and looking desperately forward to the day the opportunity for heroism comes—is fed by the gun industry, the NRA, and gun advocates like Carson. It tells people they need to have lots of guns stockpiled at home, and to always carry their gun everywhere they go. Because today could be the day when everything depends on your willingness to use deadly force.
Now think for a moment about how Hollywood action films work. They’re seldom about large armies facing off, with the individuals within them each playing their small but important role. Instead, they show us a solitary hero or small band of comrades doing spectacular things against far superior forces. Arnold Schwarzenegger mows down hundreds of faceless enemies who never manage to lay a hand on him; Liam Neeson cracks the necks of dozens of thugs on his way to save his daughter; Sylvester Stallone single-handedly defeats the entire North Vietnamese army; Jennifer Lawrence overthrows a brutal dictatorship with a few friends and some well-aimed arrows.
If you don’t appreciate that these are fantasies, it might make perfect sense to think that Germany’s Jews could have stopped the Holocaust by being more gutsy. In real life, though, that’s not how it works. Armies aren’t defeated by a lone hero with a gun and a ready quip; armies are defeated by bigger, better armies (or in some cases by organized, decades-long insurgencies). Dictatorships aren’t brought down by a single act of defiance; more often it takes years or even decades of protest, organizing, and arduous work.
All of the Republican candidates would probably tell you that owning a gun (or two or twelve) is a good idea to protect your family. This happens to be wrong; a gun in your home is far more likely to wind up killing one of your family members than it is to defend you from a home invasion. But at least it’s possible. And you might, someday, commit an act of heroism that saves people’s lives, even if most of us never do. But the chance that you will buy a gun and use it to stop a fascist takeover of America is precisely zero, not only because there won’t be a fascist takeover, but because if there were, you and your gun wouldn’t stop it from happening.
Ben Carson imagines himself a Hollywood hero. If he were in that classroom in Oregon, no one might have died. And if he were a Jew in Germany in 1939, he would have hidden away a revolver, stood up to the SS, and before you know it, Hitler would have been taken care of. Right now, he’s speaking for everyone who shares his fantasy. And it looks like there are plenty of people who do.
By: Paul Waldman, Senior Writer, The American Prospect, October 11, 2015
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