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Title: Carson campaign staff collapses into chaos
Source:
Daily Mail
URL Source: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/wires/re ... ampaign-manager-aide-quit.html
Published: Dec 31, 2015
Author: Emily Flitter and James Oliphant
Post Date: 2015-12-31 17:24:15 by Willie Green
Keywords: None
Views: 1500
Comments: 6
NEW YORK/WASHINGTON, Dec 31 (Reuters) - U.S. Republican Ben Carson's 2016 presidential bid was thrown into chaos on Thursday when his campaign manager and some 20 other staff members quit amid infighting, dropping poll numbers and negative media coverage. Barry Bennett, who oversaw Carson's rapid rise to the top tier of Republican contenders and his later fall, said he quit over differences with another top adviser to Carson, Armstrong Williams. Specifically, Bennett blamed Williams for an interview Carson gave last week to The Washington Post suggesting that the campaign was in disarray. "It's one of the stupidest things I've ever seen a candidate do," Bennett said. Things had "boiled over" with Williams, Bennett told Reuters. "For the past seven weeks, I've been doing nothing but putting out Armstrong Williams-started fires," Bennett said. He also charged Williams was behind a story in The New York Times that suggested Carson was out of his depth on foreign policy. Carson's communications director, Doug Watts, also resigned due to differences with Williams, Bennett said. Some 20 staff in total left, he said. Among them was deputy campaign manager Lisa Coen. Williams, a political commentator who holds no official role with the campaign, said he was "shocked" by Bennett's criticism. "They're giving me a lot more credit than I deserve," he told Reuters. He suggested Bennett and Watts left the campaign rather than be fired. "Right now, they're upset and they need a scapegoat, and I'm the scapegoat," Williams said. Support for Carson has fallen ahead of the first contest - on Feb. 1 in the state of Iowa - for the Republican nomination in the Nov. 8 election. The retired neurosurgeon now places fourth in many national opinion polls after surging into the second slot behind the front-runner, real estate mogul Donald Trump, in the autumn. With the attacks in Paris and San Bernardino, California, elevating national security concerns among voters, Carson has been criticized by rivals for his lack of foreign policy experience. He has never held elected office. Craig Robinson, former political director for Iowa's Republican Party, said Carson's lack of visibility in Iowa damaged him even though he had the chance to capitalize on his much-touted status as a political outsider. "All along, I've never really thought this was a serious presidential campaign in that it is actually operating and doing things to get elected," Robinson said. In spite of the poll numbers, Carson's campaign on Wednesday announced a fourth-quarter fundraising haul of about $23 million, and Bennett said Carson remained in a strong position. "He's got millions of dollars on hand," Bennett said. "He should be able to do something with that." Carson's campaign announced that Bob Dees, a retired Army major general, would be the campaign chairman while Ed Brookover, formerly a senior strategist, would serve as campaign manager. Poster Comment:U.S. Republican Ben Carson's campaign manager, 20 staff quit
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#1. To: Willie Green, compassionate conservative progressives (#0)
Where will all those globalist pansy, "compassionate conservative" bushbot zombies go... Rubio, Jeb!, Bernie, Hillary?
He also charged Williams was behind a story in The New York Times that suggested Carson was out of his depth on foreign policy. Carson's communications director, Doug Watts, also resigned due to differences with Williams, Bennett said. Some 20 staff in total left, he said. Among them was deputy campaign manager Lisa Coen. I noticed that they tried to leave with some dignity but Williams seemed to open up attack lines on them. They fired back. Carson showed very poor judgment in listening to Williams rather than the campaign pros who got him as far as they did. They also built quite a Facebook operation apparently. Carson has already spent about two-thirds of that $23M so he probably has less than $10M on hand. He's already hit up his base of small donors many times and, with his falling poll numbers and weak debate performances, won't get much more from them. AFAIK, Carson doesn't have any sugar daddy tycoons like Cruz or Rubio or Bush to keep throwing money at him. I've read many times that Carson's entire campaign seemed like nothing more than an operation to raise funds from small donors and via Facebook, not to actually campaign or win anything. Like Carson had no idea of retail politics, probably because he doesn't. The blood is in the water. Where will his remaining supporters end up on caucus night? Chances are good they will end up with Cruz but I expect to see others make a play for them (Huckster, Santorum, as well as the GOPe candidates).
It doesn't matter. They all live in the same "house". Why is democracy held in such high esteem when it’s the enemy of the minority and makes all rights relative to the dictates of the majority? (Ron Paul,2012) American Indians had open borders. Look at how well that worked out for them.
What did they do to get him where he was? Oh they didn't do anything Carsons own words were responsible 100 percent. Not some stupid lackeys.
I think his staff ran a very savvy fundraising and Facebooking operation for him. He's toast without them. Which means he'll implode faster than he would have otherwise. The real impact is where his voters in Iowa go. He had no big following elsewhere. Cruz already snapped up the bulk of Carson's Iowa voters. If he gets half of the remaining 10% that Carson still has, Cruz will pull off a strong victory in Iowa. Unless Trump manages to turn out some huge wave of previously unregistered voters in Iowa. This is possible but Iowa's Republican voters are overwhelmingly college-educated. And those are the voters that are most resistant to Trump. So Trump has to turn out those new voters, the ones that will register on no polls until caucus night. Giving Trump some credit here, this is exactly why he hired Lewandowski, a registration and voter turnout specialist. So Team Trump has planned for and worked toward exactly those voters all along. But have they found and motivated those voters to turn out for hours of caucusing with all the caucus rules? We won't know at all until they show up at the caucuses. Or not. Right now, Cruz is like Hitlery in 2008, the obvious winner of Iowa. And Trump wants to be the new Obama, showing up with huge numbers of previously inactive voters to caucus for him. If Rubio (or Bush) manages a strong second or a very close third, that could be the launch for them to dominate the GOPe race going into New Hampshire and South Carolina and the chance to be the last GOPe mouthpiece to take on Trump or Cruz later.
Time will tell. Have a good new year.
"We (government) need to do a lot less, a lot sooner" ~Ron Paul
#2. To: Willie Green (#0)
Things had "boiled over" with Williams, Bennett told Reuters. "For the past seven weeks, I've been doing nothing but putting out Armstrong Williams-started fires," Bennett said.
In spite of the poll numbers, Carson's campaign on Wednesday announced a fourth-quarter fundraising haul of about $23 million, and Bennett said Carson remained in a strong position.
#3. To: hondo68 (#1)
Where will all those globalist pansy, "compassionate conservative" bushbot zombies go... Rubio, Jeb!, Bernie, Hillary?
#4. To: TooConservative (#2)
Carson showed very poor judgment in listening to Williams rather than the campaign pros who got him as far as they did.
#5. To: A K A Stone (#4)
#6. To: TooConservative (#5)
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