Ben Carson: Republicans’ Great White Hope or Democrats’ Huge Black Cloud

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October 24, 2015 by JImbo

Blame me for being partisan if you want. Technically it doesn’t apply because I don’t care for EITHER Democrat or Republican party (and that’s what “partisan” means.) However, blame away if it makes you feel better.

I find myself regularly defending most of the presidential candidates at one point or another. Moreso the Republicans because the media is in general biased as hell against them.

No, it’s not all intentional. Much of it is simply confirmation bias. Most journalists are liberals.

Argue if you want. Fewer say “I’m a liberal” to pollsters, but what THEY see as “liberal” and what the public sees as “liberal” matters.

If HALF the population says you the media is “too liberal” then that means that journalists are by definition more liberal than the majority of the population. That’s when they THINK they are being “objective.”

Imagine if they actually said what they THOUGHT and didn’t pretend to be objective?

So, the Democrats tend to get off easy. If you want to quantify things just count the number of negative Hillary Clinton stores on CNN or MSNBC or ABC/NBC/CBS. Not just reporting but NEGATIVE reporting.

Now compare it to the NEGATIVE reports against whatever Republican candidate you want. Even the “positive” stories have a smattering of negative.

There is less “Conservative” media out there (can you name any other TV station but Fox News? Anyone? At all?)

On top of that, there is a bigger debate WITHIN the Conservative media and the party itself. Very little ink is spilled about Hillary/Sanders differences. Gallons are spilled by the Conservatives attacking one another.

It’s just a more volatile environment. More is allowed and there is a freer exchange of ideas. You might call the Conservatives more “Free Market” in practice as well as theory.

So, I do end up defending some candidates more simply because there are MORE attacks against them. That tends to in many cases correlate to their popularity. After all, why attack the guy in last place? You aim for the leader in the polls to take them down a peg!

Yesterday it was Donald Trump.

Today I’m standing up for Dr. Ben Carson.

I know Rand Paul fans will be pissed (quite a few of you appear to be Libertarians. I know… should be supporting him but he’s not his father…. or Gary Johnson for that matter.)

So, it is what it is.

Give it a read and let me know if it’s a fair analysis.

I’m always open for criticism.

I’m still getting hate mail for having the audacity to call Illegal Aliens…. “Illegal.”

But, I digress.

This is what motivated me to write this when it popped up in my Facebook news feed:

Why Was Rand Paul Left Off This Fox News Poll?

I agree it was dishonest to leave Rand Paul at 5% off and put Carly Fiorina on with just 4%. However, what jumped out at me on this one was the chart at the bottom.

Ben Carson leads the “second choice column at 19%.
So 28% of people say they want him, and 19% say they would be perfectly fine voting for him if their first choice person didn’t make it.
That’s 47% of people who would happily vote for Ben Carson.
The next closest person is Donald Trump at just 28% (first AND second together)
That’s huge.
It’s important since one of the biggest problems we have in elections is that voter turnout is low because people tend to want just THEIR person to go and if they don’t make it to the main election they sit home and pout.
Ben Carson seems to be popular as both a first and second choice, so those people might not sit home pouting if Trump, Cruz et al don’t make it.
It ALSO means that he likely has support among many DIFFERENT groups (since he has support as 2nd choice among many different other candidates) which could translate (like Trump to an extent) into cross-party voters (Democrats voting Republican) and Independents.

Can you imagine the Democratic Party winning if Ben Carson gets the black vote?

The last Presidential election in 2012 was actually pretty close despite many Republicans not voting for Mitt Romney and Barack Obama getting 95% of the black vote.

However, how strong is support for the Democrat party among African Americans?

Not very strong apparently.

Imagine if even HALF of that 95% voted for Ben Carson that would surely make life hard for the Democrats.
About 17.8 million black voters went to the polls in 2012.
About 2.8 already voted Republican.
So, that leaves 15 million who voted for Barack Obama (Democrat)
However, without Barack there… and with a black man on the Republican side… who do they vote for? Do they even show up at all?

Since the margin of votes in 2012 was 5 million between Obama and Romney, just using 2012 figures means that flipping just 3 million voters from “Blue” (Democrat) to “Red” (Republican) would make Ben Carson president.

So, Ben Carson only needs to convince 20% of Black Democrat voters to vote for him and he wins. I think that’s far from impossible. In fact it shouldn’t be hard since many blacks voted for Obama “because he’s black.”
Not my theory. Just ask Samuel L. Jackson,  Stacey Dash and Tom Joyner. Statements given to pollsters before and after the elections in 2008 and 2012. I would guess that those same people would vote the same way if Ben Carson were on the ballot.
In addition, Ben Carson has a truly African-American story. He wasn’t born in Hawaii from a Kenyan father, growing up in Indonesia with wealthy family.

Ben Carson was born in the slums of Detroit. His single mom was on welfare. He put himself through medical school. At 32, he became the hospital’s Director of Pediatric Neurosurgery at Johns Hopkins, a position he would hold for the next 29 years.

Source: Academy of Achievement

Not only is he a role model for African American kids, he has faith. He’s a devout Christian. Faith is a powerful force in the African American community especially. (Why do you think Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr…Reverend Jesse Jackson… Reverend Al Sharpton have been so influential?)

In fact, it’s POSSIBLE that he could be MORE popular among African Americans than Barack Obama. In fact many think Obama “wasn’t really black.”

Ben Carson is a Conservative and despite their voting records for the socially liberal Democrat party, African Americans tend to be socially conservative themselves. Only 28% of blacks see themselves as “liberal” socially. They socially fit with the Republican Party platform on many issues. If they do vote for Ben Carson…what’s to stop them from finding a permanent home there?

African Americans have NOT always voted Democrat. In fact, they voted REPUBLICAN up until a few decades ago.It was only in the 1960s that they started voting Democrat.

 

Increasing numbers of African Americans have been expressing dissatisfaction with the “too liberal” social policies of the Democrat party. They vote Democrat because their parents did and they’re told to because “The Republicans are a bunch of rich white people.”

However, this year it looks like the Democrat lineup is either:

Rich Old White Guy

or

Rich Old White Woman
Oooh tough choice!
Personally I think this keeps Democrats up at night worrying.

They don’t like Trump, but they FEAR Dr. Ben Carson.

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