What is it about doctors turning out to be sham candidates?
Just like Dr. Annette Bosworth when she ran for Senate in South Dakota in 2014, Dr. Ben Carson can’t use language sensibly. Just like Bosworth, Carson is a fake conservative.
Just like Bosworth did in 2014, Carson is now bleeding campaign staff due to incompetence at the top:
“I don’t know who all will still be here, it’s not my problem” [former campaign manager Barry] Bennett said. “I can play amateur politics at home with my 9-year-old I don’t need to do it at the professional level” [Kathleen Faulders, “Former Ben Carson Campaign Manager Gives an Inside Look at Campaign Dysfunction,” ABC News, 2015.12.31].
Just like Bosworth, Carson has failed to engage in real door-to-door politics and instead has focused on shady fundraisers who put more money in their pockets than in his campaign’s:
Carson is doing a lot of things that seem puzzling for a presidential campaign, but quite logical for a brand-building exercise. He is taking weeks off the campaign trail to go on a book tour. His campaign itself is structured much more like a scamming venture than a political one. An astronomical 69 percent of his fund-raising totals are spent on more fund-raising. (Bernie Sanders, by contrast, spends just 4 percent of his intake on fund-raising.) In addition to direct mail, Carson seems to have undertaken a massive phone-spamming operation. Spending most of your money to raise more money is not a good way to get elected president, but it is a good way to build a massive list of supporters that can later be monetized. Perhaps it is a giveaway that the official title for Armstrong Williams, the figure running the Carson “campaign,” is “business manager,” as opposed to “campaign manager.” It does suggests that Carson is engaged in a for-profit venture [Jonathan Chait, “Is Ben Carson Running for President?” New York Magazine, 2015.11.03].
Just as Bosworth’s boosters bought into her Palinesque feminity, Carson’s boosters are capitalizing on his conservative blackness:
What is only whispered within the Beltway is that the Carson candidacy is not so much a serious effort to make him president as a fundraising scheme–and a very effective one. A polished team is making millions flogging a hopeless black candidate to guild-ridden Republicans who are wasting every dollar they contribute. It’s a tactic they have perfected with several black long shots.
…NDBCPCC’s [National Draft Ben Carson for President Campaign Committee] direct-mail pieces are hucksterism at its finest. They claim that Dr. Carson won the first debate, that he can be trusted to protect the 2nd Amendment, and that 37 percent of all blacks are conservative. And how’s this for exploiting racial guilt:
“The problem is that for more than 50 years the Democrats and their friends in the national news media have been telling black voters that you and I are racists” [Hubert Collins, “The Ben Carson Money Machine,” American Renaissance, 2015.10.05].
Holy cow: NDBCPCC’s pitch is Dr. Marmorstein’s Leftists-as-racists rhetoric turned into a business model! (See—everything on this blog connects!)
NDBCPCC is the John Philip Sousa IV super PAC (yes, really) that has been helping a variety of people make lots of money since 2014 by promoting Carson as a Presidential candidate:
Q: How have you spent the money you’ve raised?
JPS4: Direct mail is very expensive, so a lot of money went to direct mail. Fundraising is expensive, period. We ran ads in black communities in North Carolina and Louisiana in the Senate races. Spent about half a million on that total.
Q: You’ve spent almost as much as you’ve raised. What do you say to critics who say this is just a lucrative project for contractors and consultants?
JPS4: I mean, the Post Office is doing really well, the printer is doing really well…these things all cost money. Our fundraising firm, Eberle, cut their prices pretty substantially for this cause. They’ve been good friends of mine for a lot of years. I’ve used them on a lot of campaigns. They earn every single dollar that they’ve charged us and I begrudge them not a penny.
Anyone who wants to say this is simply an effort to raise money to support a fundraising firm is just dead wrong. We are very committed, and I think our success over the last 16-18 months has been proven. Carson never talked about running before we started this [John Philip Sousa IV, interview with Chris Moody, “Inside the Push to Draft Ben Carson for President,” CNN, 2014.12.22].
Did you catch that name, Eberle? That’s Bruce Eberle, who’s been helping conservative candidates get pennies on the dollar for their direct mail efforts since the 1970s. One of Eberle’s employees, Kimberly Bellissimo, founded her own direct mail company, ForthRight Strategy, which was originally called BMW Direct and was known as Base Connect when it worked for Annette Bosworth in 2014, bombarding vulnerable retirees with fear-mongering letters to separate them from their money. ForthRight Strategy touts their work for Bosworth as a “high-impact campaign” that put less than a fourth of the money it spent into actual campaign activities.
And just like Dr. Annette Bosworth, Dr. Ben Carson will finish risibly low in a primary contest against real Republicans, buoyed only by the lingering effects of name recognition among low-attention voters, while his fundraisers go looking for their next easy paychecks.
Bonus: See Annette Bosworth’s and Ben Carson’s 2014 junk mail side by side in this photo from an anti-junk mail warrior.
Bonus #2: After the 2014 campaign, Base Connect chief operating officer Michael Centanni got 46 months in prison for child porn. So, uh, yeah, you could say the Bosworth campaign supported child pornography.
What we see in Drs. Bosworth and Carson is the result of educations that lack the breadth and rigor that the liberal arts provide. Robots can do surgery; tape recorders can recite back sympathetic scripts. But two people who retreat into sham theological postures while committing acts of fraud and pronouncing words of ignorance and prejudice have flunked the essential fundaments of thought and expression that Thomas Jefferson and Ben Franklin and Abraham Lincoln thought formed the basis for any kind of responsible knowledge for a democracy. These people can practice medicine but none of the humane arts of healing and well-being.
I will have to disagree with Dr. Newquist. Being a physician requires plenty of background in science: chemistry, biology, etc. Both are intelligent people on some level, but yes clearly they are/were both way out their element. Doctors get treated like gods so they think they know everything.
But away from that Carson’s popularity is quite interesting. The man is black yet still had good numbers. Republicans are often painted as racist, and many felt the antagonism toward Obama was rooted in his skin color which it must not have been to a significant degree or they would have never liked Ben in the first place.
As late as 03.2015 Colin Powell is still calling out racism in the gop
I’m sure there’s none in the Democratic party. None, because they are all such advanced beings.
I don’t find DocBoz fascinating as much as a sad curiosity. She is, apologies to Sir Winston Churchill, a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma. She’s had so much working in her favor. Bright as a diamond. Loved dearly by her patients, and capable of empathy. Respected by some of her longtime closer friends (all very intelligent, professional and kind folks) who shrug off 2014 as some kind of a weird phase, and who don’t bother wondering how she flipped from possessing liberal views one year to right of Attila the Hun the next. Some speculate that Chad manipulated the political craziness. That seems to leave her off the hook because that’s her in those nutty ads and the unhinged, Bizzaro World press conferences. Some theorized that she was really aiming to create some kind of reality TV show, but that has never made sense.
As Cory indicates, the capacity for “verbal salad” is a shared attribute for Bosworth and Carson. I don’t pretend to know what kind of ego trip motivated Carson to go off the deep end and prove to be the first statistical threat to Donald Trump. His life experiences and intelligence don’t match his expressed uber rightwing statements, but it seems he’s now coming to grips with the fact that the party’s over. Life will go on for Carson, but without the short-lived celebrity. Annette’s celebrity crashed into notoriety, thanks to her dumb mistakes, dumber legal advice and a swift boot in the ass from Marty Jackley.
I’ve bumped into Annette at social venues a couple times since summer and she seems lost, as if none of the events of the last two years have settled in. It’s awkward. It’s too bad for Annette that she was surrounded by leeches who saw her as a revenue source. I wish she had the common sense to tell them no. I hope she stays the hell away from the political scene and can find success as a health care provider. And if Chad is the chief manipulator that some suspect, dump him, Annette, and get your life back on track.
One more point. It’s interesting to compare the current GOP presidential primary with the 2014 GOP U.S. Senate primary in South Dakota. If the presidential primary were to go the way the South Dakota primary went, the lead duck would be Jeb Bush, the anointed establishment candidate. Instead, what we see happening with Trump is what might have happened if Stace Nelson grabbed the bull by the horns, raised the early money and shoved Rounds to the curb.
Many technical people seriously lack social intelligence.
Carson claims to be a black CONSERVATIVE CHRISTIAN who does not like Obama,which is why wingnuts claim to support him. He is viewed as the antithesis of eveything Obama stands for. He will not be and never had a chance to be the party of wealthy whites candidate. To wingnuts he is nothing more than a one night stand. Another Alan Keyes or Allen West only not certifiably crazy.
And I still think Bosworth should be institutionalized for her own good.
Come on now Mike break it down: Do you really think “they” only like him because he, another black person rejects Obama? Today’s Uncle Tom, or for them was it he epitomizes what they still think America is and may be even yet. He was a great surgeon. Someone who can save your life is an equalizer don’t you think? You’d pay anyone of any color for that.
@Newquist: “Recite back”? From a lettered wordsmith no less. Wait, what’s that sound? The University of Iowa wanting their degrees back. The Department of Redundancy Department would be proud. If my memory is correct, Carson graduated with his Bachelor of Arts from a top tier liberal arts college, Yale.
This is a smear piece worthy of Pat Powers, Cory. Absolutely disgusting.
Here are a couple more grifters wanting a jet. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AdH2DGSXjss
Using christianity to raise money, Cory? Say it ain’t so.
HC-do you suppose they like him because he IS a brain surgeon,yet none of the wingnuts have brains?
Obama can save their lives,too,yet they treat Obama like a field hand. Being a great surgeon does not qualify one as potential potus material.
Coyote-dumbass dubya graduated from 2-count ’em-2 liberal arts schools,Harvard and Yale. And he and wingnuts detest east coast,liberal arts schools.
Ah, but Hap, read the “Money Machine” article again. The Carson candidacy was concocted to play exactly to that desire to counterprogram the accusations of racism that the GOP has faced throughout the Obama Administration. And their support of Ben Carson was rather fleeting.
Sorry, Kurt, but Carson appears to be exactly the kind of cynical fake candidate that Bosworth was, using our electoral process for personal gain rather than out of a genuine desire to serve.
South Dakotans give undeserved respect to cops, Doctors and ministers before they’ve earned it.
Like Mr. tears says, Dr. Boz was in some nutty ads and unhinged bizarre press conferences. That is part of what makes her so appealing to so many.
96, I think your post makes sense. My very liberal son went to college with Boswell at USD. He described her as an intelligent, well grounded, rational student, who never wore any religious views on her sleeves. He cannot believe the apparent changes in her personality and behavior described during her political days.
Meanwhile, anyone who thinks Carson, like Herman Cain during the last primary, is any more than window dressing for Republicans to try to salvage some of the black vote needs a reality check.
96-the job of rehabbing Doc Boswell is yours if you want it. Throw hubby to the curb,if Jackley doesn’t do it first, and get that girl the help she so desperately needs. She almost seems to be bi-polar.
I don’t know if she could or should be trusted diagnosing other people’s symptons,at least not before she has a complete overhaul for herself. Frame-off restoration might be in order.
I watched all the GOP debates to date and Carson’s performances have been embarrassing.
You can pick any political topic, foreign affairs, national security, the economy, and Carson can offer nothing of substance and often displays a clear lack of curiousity.
Even before the first debate, it was obvious the guy had no business at debate podium.
There are any number of candidates for various offices that do the Bosworth/Carson fundraising routine, they know they will lose, but what a great way to make money.
There was a series of articles talking about the downfall of Michelle Bachmann’s prez campaign. While people can disagree with Carson and Bachmann’s policies, positions and general state of humanity there are important lessons to be learned by what happened to them. Comparing anyone to Bosworth is a stretch. She is on her own island.
With Bachmann, she initially had a lot of success, and was doing well. Then the money started flowing. She hired the wrong people to run the ground game in Iowa, South Carolina, and New Hampshire. Hired the wrong people to manage her ad-buys and run her campaigns. They didnt care how well she did or didnt do, they cared about lining their own pockets. Which ended up destroying her campaign before it even started.
With Bosworth she literally committed felonies before her campaign even started. She hired people and wrapped them up in non-disclosure agreements, so she could take the credit for their work. She encouraged staff from her 504.1c3 non-profit to engage in campaigning activities which is also a violation of law.
Carson’s campaign was largely done in by a politico article that was put out on a friday afternoon, and largely debunked in the first hour, but by then it had found traction on all the major news outlets. Carson’s campaign largely handled it well, I thought, but it didnt seem to matter.
Got a link to the Politico ad that did Carson in? I’d be interested in reading it.
96, that’s a fascinating alternative history you suggest, a timeline in which Stace Nelson taps his inner trump and shakes up the primary. Can conscientious candidates learn anything from Trump? Is there some shred of Trumpian tactics that we Democrats can use without being jerks?
Doctors without conscience. Not even close to Doctors without Borders. Looking at these two, makes me wonder about how poorly we educate physicians. Thank the powers to be that we have an influx of foreign doctors to fill the chasm.
Mike, read that Politico November 6 article here:
http://www.politico.com/story/2015/11/ben-carson-west-point-215598
Politico stands by its story. But that one article didn’t take him down. Carson has hung himself with a variety of false and clueless statements, much like Annette Bosworth.
DaleB makes a reasonable point that Bosworth is in a league of her own on abusing the political process for personal gain. Of course, Carson and Bachmann have enjoyed much more success.
Note what DaleB says about Bosworth’s as-yet unprosecuted crimes. She has gotten off easy.
Dr. Carson sent out some pretty hefty and fancy mailings addressed to me and even a signed picture. I am sad to hear about this.
Thanks,Cory. I had read this one before somewhere,but I re-read it and it sounds eerily familiar to the last time I read it.
And we should not forget the equally unstable Doctor/Senator Rand Paul.
Apparently he ran a good campaign with plenty of support to get elected, but he has often displayed behavior similar to Bosworth and Carson.
It seems doctors are more prone to mental instability.
Roger, the entire GOP presidential field is unstable. Lest we forget, Hillary Clinton holds a Juris Doctor.
Cory,
You, better than anyone as a debate/speech coach, should know there is much to learn (and fear) from the Trump tactic. It really hasn’t been as much a strategy as a tactic, which is to be a human bullhorn and relentless performer.
Trump is not a politician. He’s a real estate developer who inherited a fortune and maintained a fortune by being the biggest, loudest a–hole in the room. All he’s done is to apply the same tactic to a presidential primary where the other candidates don’t have a defense to his simple tactic. Bill Janklow did the same thing in the 80s and 90s.
There is much to be learned here by Democrats, especially when you’ve got the kind of ammunition that we have with the GEAR UP and EB-5 crimes and cover-ups. The trick is don’t wait for Republicans and their handmaidens in the press to approve of your message. Take it straight to people by all means necessary and don’t cut the GOP any slack. Be relentless. Be brutal. The SDGOP are crooks and liars in South Dakota. Hang them all out to dry and don’t stop tearing into them even after the election. There is another election in 2018 and they should be forced to stay married to the filthy corruption they created and profited from for decades.
The other alternative is to allow the crooks to stay in control. Their tactic is to keep everybody gagged and quiet election after election. That’s your other choice.
XOXOXO
96Tears
96Tears,
You are absolutely right about Cory and what he has done with DFP and can do in the coming years.
The role that his readers have is to share what Cory reports in social media, and once we have shared it, share it again.
Cory’s research and reporting is superb, some of the best I have ever read for a state of our size. It is not based on rumor or speculation, that is the job for us as readers, it is based of facts.
Perhaps the discussion we should be having is how to get his blog a larger audience.
Signed pictures? Those aren’t cheap to print. Can you send me those Carson mailings, Grudz? Scan ’em and e-mail ’em? How much did they talk about Obama and tyranny?
Roger, on Rand Paul, I haven’t felt him going down the crazy or incompetent road quite as far as Carson. Can you give me some examples?
Roger, on audience, you’ve already laid out the method for gaining more: share and share and share.
I get all sorts of junk email about SEO and traffic-driving services, which sound an awful lot like the Forthright Strategy/Base Connect Carson/Bosworth model of spending a whole lot of money to help others get rich. I could also try some Trumpesque sensationalism. But I won’t. The slow but honest route to success is exactly what you said in your last comment: produce solid writing, backed with reliable research, that inspires readers to share it with their neighbors.
Democratic candidates, I recommend you print out and tape to the front page of your binder the comment 96Tears posted at 21:51. We Democrats could use and honest Janklow, relentless and unabashed in calling out the crooks and liars in Pierre. Most voters grok that Pierre is corrupt; they just need someone to unleash their fury at that theft by calling it out in the press.
Thanks for the link! I will be putting “anti-junk mail warrior” on business cards if I ever have some printed up :)
You are correct these people are not running for office to win. They are running to make money. Only it backfired on Dr. Bosworth and it ruined her life.