Ben Carson has been struggling to maintain the momentum he enjoyed early in the campaign season. At one point he led the GOP pack in Iowa. But then Dewey opened his mouth. Dewey Clarridge, a former CIA official assisting with Carson’s campaign, told a reporter “No one has been able to sit down with him and have him get one iota of intelligent information about the Middle East.”
That didn’t help. Good advisers are so hard to find. Back in December Carson started to turn things in his favor when he told an interviewer “Being gay is absolutely a choice. It’s just like being black.” But his poll numbers only rose slightly after that interview.
Undeterred, Carson declared prior to the January 28th debate that things would start turning in his favor. And he used last Thursday’s debate to make sure that happened. Each candidate received a 30-second segment to issue a closing statement. Carson used his time to say this:
“It’s time to get the federal government out of education. I keep hearing people say that they support Common Core. But my question is this: How is having standardized apples in the lunchroom going to do anything for students? This is total overreach by the federal government. It’s time for Michelle Obama and her school lunch crusaders to stand down!!!”
Stirring. You can already feel things starting to turn.