Top Carson campaign staffers resign

[Doc Savage Fan]

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2015/12/31/top-carson-campaign-staffers-resign.html

Top Carson campaign staffers resign

Republican presidential candidate Ben Carson’s campaign was rocked Thursday by the resignation of two of his most senior staffers -- as the former neurosurgeon sees a drop in poll numbers and is raking in more donations than his GOP rivals.
Communications Director Doug Watts told Fox News in a statement that he and campaign manager Barry Bennett had resigned from the campaign.

"Barry Bennett and I have resigned from the Carson campaign effective immediately,” Watts said. “We respect the candidate and we have enjoyed helping him go from far back in the field to top-tier status.”

The resignations come just after the Carson camp announcedthat they had brought in $23 million in donations in the fourth quarter, surpassing all other Republicans, including Texas Sen. Ted Cruz who had brought in $20 million.

“Having just announced raising $23m(illion) for the 4th Q(uarter), more than any other Republican candidate, and passing 1 million contributions and over 600 K unique donors since March, we are proud of our efforts for Dr. Carson and we wish him and his campaign the best of luck,” Watts said.

Carson surged into second place in the polls in the middle of 2015, and was at one point briefly tied with front-runner Donald Trump, but has since seen his numbers slide. The latest Real Clear Politics average of recent polls shows Carson has slipped to fourth place, behind Trump, Cruz and Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla.

A December Fox News Poll showed a similar drop in fortunes, with the former neurosurgeon dropping to 9 percent, from a high of 23 percent in the fall.

Carson press secretary Deana Bass told Fox News to expect a more comprehensive statement later in the day.

Wow!!! This should be interesting.

 

[Moonbeam]

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2015/12/31/top-carson-campaign-staffers-resign.html



Wow!!! This should be interesting.

What do you find interesting here?

 

[Sonikku]

Republican primaries are crazy like this. One week one guy is up in the polls and in the next debate the whole team rages on him. Then another guy is up in the polls the next week and in the next debate the team rails on that guy too. By the time everything is said and done trying to dethrone flavor of the week and you have one candidate left to clinch the nomination, all their dirty laundry has been aired for all to see. Too bad for Carson slipping to a third of his peek polling high but that's just par for the course. Rats off a sinking ship.

 

[kage69]

Republican primaries are crazy like this. One week one guy is up in the polls and in the next debate the whole team rages on him. Then another guy is up in the polls the next week and in the next debate the team rails on that guy too. By the time everything is said and done trying to dethrone flavor of the week and you have one candidate left to clinch the nomination, all their dirty laundry has been aired for all to see. Too bad for Carson slipping to a third of his peek polling high but that's just par for the course. Rats off a sinking ship.

Carson's expertise in brain surgery certainly doesn't seem to translate into fluency on political issues. He strikes me as an Asperger's version of GWB or Reagan, and seems to have a similar reliance on aides for topical knowledge, and a similar lack of enthusiasm for changing that situation. I think the patience needed there for said aides is probably in greater supply for an actual president. For a nominee candidate who keeps shooting himself in the foot with counterproductive insights into his character? Not so much.

Sorry Carson. GOP is going Latin this round. When Trump's done and dismounts anyway.

 

[mysticjbyrd]

What do you find interesting here?

Yup, Carson was too crazy even for the Republican clown car. He had no chance...

Carson's expertise in brain surgery certainly doesn't seem to translate into fluency on political issues. He strikes me as an Asperger's version of GWB or Reagan, and seems to have a similar reliance on aides for topical knowledge, and a similar lack of enthusiasm for changing that situation. I think the patience needed there for said aides is probably in greater supply for an actual president. For a nominee candidate who keeps shooting himself in the foot with counterproductive insights into his character? Not so much.

Sorry Carson. GOP is going Latin this round. When Trump's done and dismounts anyway.

Honestly, it has me questioning how difficult brain surgery actually is.

 

[cbrunny]

Good move for the staffers. Prove that they're good at their jobs, and then attach themselves to a candidate that has the ability to actually win. Kudos to those guys.

 

[ivwshane]

Its been said before that Carson is in this for the money (stopping his campaign to do a book tour, really). When you rake in a buttload of money and your top campaign managers quit, somethings up. Normally it's because the writing is on the wall and is just a matter of time before the campaign collapses but after receiving a ton of donations?

Doesn't make sense unless they are going to form a superpac.

 

[Victorian Gray]

Its been said before that Carson is in this for the money (stopping his campaign to do a book tour, really). When you rake in a buttload of money and your top campaign managers quit, somethings up. Normally it's because the writing is on the wall and is just a matter of time before the campaign collapses but after receiving a ton of donations?

Doesn't make sense unless they are going to form a superpac.

He's also been making paid speeches while "campaigning". He's like most of the clowns "running", it's about building the brand to increase personal wealth.

 

[Moonbeam]

He's also been making paid speeches while "campaigning". He's like most of the clowns "running", it's about building the brand to increase personal wealth.

You are probably right and it makes me sick. It makes me sick that suspicion and cynicism are the first thoughts out of the bag. It makes me sick that the notion that politicians become such to serve other people isn't the assumption that our experience hasn't made the obvious choice. What the fuck is wrong with people that they don't know that all you can leave behind is the love you create.

No need to answer, I already know, But what an fing waste.

 

[Balt]

The guy didn't belong in the contest to begin with.

He had appeal as an outsider, but that was basically the only appeal he had. He couldn't demonstrate any knowledge of foreign or domestic policy issues beyond two scripted lines that were fed to him.

Just count him among one of the many Republican candidates who is using the primary to sell more books.

 

[ivwshane]

The guy didn't belong in the contest to begin with.

He had appeal as an outsider, but that was basically the only appeal he had. He couldn't demonstrate any knowledge of foreign or domestic policy issues beyond two scripted lines that were fed to him.

Just count him among one of the many Republican candidates who is using the primary to sell more books.

It's more than just Republican candidates. There is a whole industry of people who are looking to cash in on the right wing crazy, gravy train. If you can sound crazy enough and appeal to the right, you can make a lot of money. Righties are all too happy to donate their money to anyone that makes them think they are sane. In the eighties it was televangelists who were running the scam on the same type of people. I don't know if it's the same people though.

 

[blankslate]

Honestly, it has me questioning how difficult brain surgery actually is.

Yeah if he was a Rocket Scientist... the phrase "It's not rocket science" would have lost all meaning.


______________

 

[Doc Savage Fan]

Looks like they thought Armstrong Williams had way too much influence over Carson.

http://news.yahoo.com/ben-carsons-c...n-leave-gop-campaign-180946549--election.html

Carson staffers quit, question his readiness for White House

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — Several top aides to Republican presidential candidate Ben Carson resigned on Thursday, citing frustration with the influence of the retired neurosurgeon's business manager and questioning his readiness for the White House.

Barry Bennett and Doug Watts, both seasoned political operatives, stepped down with less than five weeks before voters in Iowa begin the nominating process with the state's Feb. 1 caucuses.

Bennett was Carson's campaign manager. Watts was communications director. But Bennett said Carson's longtime business manager, Armstrong Williams, is the adviser who has Carson's ear, even though Williams does not have a formal role in the campaign.

Carson is "one of the smartest men I've ever worked for," Bennett said, but added that he believes Carson has become Williams' "script reader."

Bennett said that made it difficult to advise Carson and raised questions in his mind about what kind of president Carson would make if elected.

"You have to surround yourself with good people," Bennett said. "And he hasn't demonstrated that he can do that. No one wants Armstrong Williams anywhere near the Oval Office."

Williams replied Thursday: "Barry and I agree. I will be nowhere near the Oval Office when Dr. Carson is elected president. I will remain in my private practice."

Williams also disputed Bennett's characterization that his influence is inappropriate, and said the departures were more firings than resignations. "I'm sure Barry resigned because he wanted total control and he wasn't going to have that," Williams said.

Carson's campaign released a statement Thursday describing staff changes as "enhancements" that "will shift the campaign into higher gear." Along with Bennett and Watts, deputy campaign manager Lisa Coen also left.

Retired Army Major Gen. Robert Dees, who has been advising Carson on foreign policy and military affairs, will serve as campaign chairman. Ed Brookover, formerly a senior strategist, will serve as campaign manager.

"I don't think any one person should have the candidate's ear," Williams said. "I think he should listen to a multitude of advisers, inside the campaign and outside the campaign."

In Iowa, where Carson is trying to appeal to the large number of evangelical voters who take part in the state's leadoff caucuses, his state-based staff said the shake-up at campaign headquarters would have little or no impact on their organization.

"Whatever the issue was at the national level, it does not affect us at the Iowa level," said Rob Taylor, a Republican state representative and Carson's campaign chairman in the state.

The staff turmoil at the highest reaches of the Carson campaign is the latest setback for his presidential bid, which displayed significant fundraising power this summer and for a brief time was atop some preference polls.

But as quickly as Carson rose to the top of the GOP field, he began to falter. Bennett says Williams led Carson into multiple mistakes, particularly in the last two months as Carson struggled to establish foreign policy credentials amid increased voter concerns about national security.

Bennett and Watts' decision to leave the campaign came a week after Carson told The Associated Press in an interview that he was considering a major staff shakeup, only to walk back those comments hours later, declaring that he had "full confidence" in his team.

Williams arranged for that interview without Bennett's knowledge. Carson's subsequent statement of support for his team was issued after discussing his initial comments with Bennett and Watts, but Bennett said Thursday that those events were evidence his place in the campaign had become untenable.

Carson "told everybody else 'nobody wants staff changes,'" Bennett recalled. "Why the hell did you say it then? Armstrong had given him the talking points."

The interview "was Armstrong's calculation against us," Bennett said. "Ben was just the script reader. It was horribly embarrassing to us, the whole campaign staff. One hundred fifty people went home for Christmas with their families wondering whether they would keep their jobs. Excellent timing."

Bennett described Carson as "surprised" by the resignations. Williams, who says he spoke with Carson after the candidate spoke with Bennett, described Carson as "calm, confident, reassured and ready to move forward."

"This allows Dr. Carson a fresh start," Williams said.

Williams said he spoke with Dees, the new campaign chairman, on Thursday and described their relationship as "wonderful."

"I've spoken with the good general, congratulated him," Williams said. "We've been with Dr. Carson since the beginning of this operation."

Taylor said the campaign turnover was not unexpected and that Carson is actively engaged with the decision making. It helps that Carson's Iowa campaign director, Ryan Rhodes, will remain in his position and perhaps take on greater responsibilities, Taylor said.

"We've been moving forward in Iowa the whole time," Taylor said.

 

[MongGrel]

*munches popcorn*

Allows a fresh start.

He he he.

You really can't make some things up over real life.

 

[zinfamous]

Yeah if he was a Rocket Scientist... the phrase "It's not rocket science" would have lost all meaning.


______________

 

[kage69]

"Ben was just the script reader."


It's a shame the GOP couldn't muster some of that concern in the Cheney days, or even better, when St. Reagan was in office!

Behind the Ronald Reagan myth: “No one had ever entered the White House so grossly ill informed”
http://www.salon.com/2015/12/28/beh...ered_the_white_house_so_grossly_ill_informed/

"The president “cut ribbons and made speeches. He did these things beautifully,” Congressman Jim Wright of Texas acknowledged. “But he never knew frijoles from pralines about the substantive facts of issues.” Some thought him to be not only ignorant but, in the word of a former CIA director, “stupid.” Clark Clifford called the president an “amiable dunce,” and the usually restrained columnist David Broder wrote, “The task of watering the arid desert between Reagan’s ears is a challenging one for his aides.”

“Reagan,” his principal biographer, Lou Cannon, has written, “may have been the one president in the history of the republic who saw his election as a chance to get some rest.” (He spent nearly a full year of his tenure not in the White House but at his Rancho del Cielo in the hills above Santa Barbara.) Cabinet officials had to accommodate themselves to Reagan’s slumbering during discussions of pressing issues, and on a multination European trip, he nodded off so often at meetings with heads of state, among them French president François Mitterand, that reporters, borrowing the title of a film noir, designated the journey “The Big Sleep.” He even dozed during a televised audience at the Vatican while the pope was speaking to him.

"His team devised ingenious ways to get him to pay attention. Aware that he was obsessed with movies, his national security adviser had the CIA put together a film on world leaders the president was scheduled to encounter. His defense secretary stooped lower. He got Reagan to sign off on production of the MX missile by showing him a cartoon."



Remind anyone of Rumsfeld making poor, confused Dubya a scripture loaded memo in order to sell the invasion?

Grats to Carson, his apathy and ignorance regarding politics is forcing parts of the GOP to address disturbing aspects of the party and it's views on "leadership." Here's hoping it amounts to something. :thumbsup: