What Wrecked Ben Carson’s Campaign? Ex-Staffers Blame His Close Friend.
Mother Jones
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Ben Carson took to a stage in Des Moines, Iowa, on Wednesday to let the world know that just because Armstrong Williams, his longtime friend and close adviser, says something, that doesn’t mean it’s true. That remark was a kick in the teeth to Williams, a prominent and controversial black conservative pundit and PR specialist who calls himself Carson’s business manager, and it naturally made headlines. But hours later, Carson joined Williams on Williams’ nightly radio show and declared that he had complete faith in Williams, who has played an outsize—and perhaps negative—role in Carson’s presidential campaign.
What the heck was going on? The Carson campaign already had enough to worry about in the final days before the Iowa caucuses. Carson at one point led the GOP pack in Iowa, but for weeks he’s been stuck in single digits in the polls. And once more the story for his campaign was internal chaos and Carson’s odd relationship with Williams. It was the latest iteration of a deep problem that, according to Carson staffers who recently quit, has dogged the campaign from the beginning and may well doom it.
From the start, the Carson campaign has seemed afflicted with a split personality caused by Caron’s relationship with Williams. Carson’s campaign staffers, seasoned GOP operatives, were trying to conduct a professional effort with an orderly chain of command. Yet Williams would make decisions on his own and on the fly that would contradict or undermine the campaign’s plans. And Carson—too often, according to his former staffers—did what Williams advised him to do. For instance, Williams, without informing the campaign brass, often set up media interviews that ended up hurting Carson and the campaign.
A strange pattern developed. Carson would publicly deny that Williams, who years ago worked for Sen. Strom Thurmond and then Clarence Thomas before his appointment to the Supreme Court, had any significant role in the campaign. But days later, Williams would pop up on television, speaking on behalf of the former neurosurgeon. Apparently in charge. Or something.
Several former staffers now say that Williams was always at the helm of the campaign—without any official title—and Carson constantly followed his guidance. In other words, when Carson was publicly stating that Williams did not have much to do with the campaign, he was not speaking truthfully.
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What Wrecked Ben Carson’s Campaign? Ex-Staffers Blame His Close Friend.
