Retired Johns Hopkins pediatric neurosurgeon and established author, Ben Carson, is continuing to move forward for a chance at the White House in 2016. A New York Times Magazine reporter recently sat in as he interviewed a candidate for his press secretary, Deana Bass, which led to an interesting story about where his potential candidacy stands.
An unlikely job interview situation for Bass ended up leading to an ongoing demonstration of how some of the controversy and criticism of Carson thus far could make the success of his run pretty slim – but he’s definitely not stepping down just yet.
Carson has put his foot in his mouth a few times, like when he compared Obamacare to slavery and later said homosexuality was clearly a choice because some people go into prison straight and come out gay, which he later apologized for. All of this has made Carson stand out in a certain way, for better or worse – he has been a novelty candidate much like Hermain Cain was previously. But an attempt to be taken more seriously is continuously underway, apparently.
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Whether or not Carson’s inspiring life story is enough to get him a legitimate opportunity for the position as president is still up for debate, though – it could end up being limited to the 1990 TNT memoir “Gifted Hands” in which Carson is played by Cuba Gooding Jr. But you never know.
Ben Carson is, in many ways, the ideal Republican presidential candidate. With a not-too-selective reading of his life story, conservative voters can — and do — see in him an inspiring, up-from-nowhere African-American who shares their beliefs, a right-wing answer to Barack Obama.
Some of his views really rub the left-wingers the wrong way, but he continues to move forward with being open about his opinions.
Carson, a two-time Jimmy Carter voter, traces his conservative political awakening to a patient he met during the Reagan years. During a routine obstetrics rotation, he found himself treating an unwed pregnant teenager who had run away from her well-to-do parents. When Carson asked her how she was getting by, she informed him she was on public assistance; this led him to ponder the fact that the government was paying for the result of what he did not view as a “wise decision.” The incident, he says, fed his growing sense that the welfare system too often saps motivation and rewards irresponsible behavior. (When we spoke, he suggested that the government should cut off assistance to would-be unwed mothers, but only after warning them that it would do so within a certain amount of time, say five years. “I bet you’d see a dramatic decrease in unwed motherhood.”)
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The outspoken version of Carson is relatively new, according to the Times Magazine piece. As reporter Jim Rutenberg noted in the story, in the car on the way to an early conference, Carson shared about why he believes his candidacy is warranted.
It was still dark when we set out, and I joked with Carson about the hour, telling him he’d better get used to it. He retorted that his career in pediatric brain surgery made him no stranger to early mornings. This is a big theme of Carson’s presidential pitch: that neither the rigors of the campaign nor those of the White House can faze a man who held children’s lives in his hands. His life in brain surgery has prepared him for the presidency, he maintains, better than lives in politics have for his rivals. At the very least, he says, it conditioned him against getting too worked up about any problem that isn’t life threatening. “I mean, it’s grueling, but interestingly enough, I don’t feel the pressure,” he said.
Time will tell when and if Carson decides to pull the plug and whether or not it’s as a result of saying something that is too out of bounds. But for now, the effort remains in tact.
