What's Fueling the Ben Carson BuzzBy Rebecca Berg - August 21, 2015
DES MOINES, Iowa — Before Ben Carson spoke, the crowd gathered around the Iowa State Fair soapbox on Sunday took stock of the man.
An undecided couple asked a campaign volunteer why Carson is different. “He’s a true, honest man,” the volunteer gushed. “A man of integrity. Not a politician.”
“He’s a tame version of Donald Trump,” another Carson supporter a few feet away remarked separately. “I like that.”
In another corner of the crowd, an elderly woman fainted in the simmering heat. People gathered around her began to call for a medic.
“Call Dr. Carson!” one spectator exclaimed, only half joking, as the woman was tended to by medical personnel not running for president.
Donald Trump’s meteoric rise in the GOP primary has obscured that of another first-time candidate and political outsider: Carson, a retired pediatric neurosurgeon, who is polling in the top three of Republicans nationally, according to the RealClearPolitics average. In South Carolina, Carson also ranks third; in Iowa, he is second only to Trump.
Inside the Beltway, Carson is scarcely discussed. In the states that will help choose the Republican nominee, his name is on thousands of lips.
Following the first Republican debate, it was Carson’s performance that data suggests stood out to many voters. That weekend, he was not among the candidates who filtered through the conservative RedState Gathering in Atlanta, hosted by the influential conservative blogger Erick Erickson; Carson had not received an invitation. Instead, Carson headlined a rally in Des Moines that drew at least 1,000 people, according to an Iowa Republican report. Over the course of three events in Iowa that weekend, Carson’s campaign signed up 5,000 volunteers, by its count. This week, a crowd for Carson in Phoenix numbered roughly 12,000.
It is easy to explain Carson’s momentum in the same breath as Trump’s, as being fueled by enthusiasm for political outsiders. But Carson’s allies don’t think that tells the whole story.
“I don’t think there is anything that’s touched the Ben Carson mold. He’s so uniquely different than anyone who has run as an outsider, a non-politician,” said Ryan Rhodes, Carson’s Iowa state director. “I don’t think you can compare anyone, including the outsiders that are in the race now.”
Indeed, Carson has a story unlike anyone else running for president: raised poor and a mediocre student, he rose to become a world-renowned neurosurgeon, the first to successfully separate conjoined twins. President George W. Bush awarded Carson the Medal of Freedom for his work.
That story has captivated many of Carson’s supporters. It is also at the center of his campaign, whereas policy prescriptions that typically drive presidential campaigns are secondary.
"I'm the only one to separate Siamese twins," Carson said during the Republican debate. "The only one to operate on babies while they were still in the mother's womb, and the only one to take out half of a brain. Though, you'd think that if you've gone to Washington, someone had beaten me to it.” The crowd roared with laughter; the moment was among the most talked about on social media.
On the road, The Ben Carson Show is much the same, centered on his achievements in medicine and his inspirational personal success story. The guiding principle of Carson’s bid for president is the idea that an intelligent person without experience in government is qualified by virtue of his other successes to hold the office of presidency.
“Together, using our brain, we can save our nation,” Carson said from the soapbox in Iowa.
But even as that unconventional theme has earned Carson admiration from his supporters, it has also made him the butt of jokes.
“Ben Carson Wows Iowa State Fair Attendees With Massive 300-Pound Brain,” read a headline this week at the satirical news site, The Onion.
Like Trump, Carson is running a nontraditional campaign — which has its perks, but also comes with its share of distinct challenges. Carson does not boast the muscular fundraising apparatus of more traditional candidates like Jeb Bush or Ted Cruz, nor is his campaign staff as large. And he might confront the challenge of attracting new supporters into his fold who are skeptical of his credentials or unfamiliar with his work.
“He has a grassroots enthusiasm that propels him to a low-double-digit floor, but that’s also been his ceiling,” said Tim Albrecht, an Iowa Republican strategist. “Carson will have to prove he can grow his appeal into a larger voting bloc.”
But, in a recent blog post, Albrecht also noted that Iowa has historically been fertile ground for “outsider” Republican candidates. During the 1996 Iowa caucuses, Sen. Bob Dole came out on top — but just barely. Just three points behind him was Pat Buchanan, who went on to win the New Hampshire primary, with the businessman Steve Forbes in third place. In 2000, Forbes went on to place second in the caucuses behind George W. Bush.
With a little more than five months until the Iowa caucuses, Carson appears to be well positioned to conform to that model — and, if not win the caucuses, to impact the outcome.
“Our supporters are evangelists for us,” said Rhodes. “They’re the ones who go out and say, ‘You’ve got to see this guy.’”
Meanwhile, Carson himself still seems in transition from long-shot outsider to serious Iowa contender. As he walked through the fairgrounds Sunday following his speech, he would not discuss with RealClearPolitics who is advising him on policy matters, saying, “That will come later.”
Nor does he feel any particular pressure, as a first-time candidate, to prove his muscle in the policy arena: “As our numbers rise in the polls, that will come. People will start to ask about it.”
Carson thinks that what he and Trump have in common is not so much their outsider status, but their “records of success.” And, in Carson’s estimation, they are telling people the truth.
“I think people want truth," he said.
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2015/08/21/whats_fueling_the_ben_carson_buzz.html
