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GOP campaign financing: Part 2 ~ Dr. Ben Carson
Up until today, a look at Dr. Ben Carson’s fundraising showed a
campaign burning through lots of cash, with a campaign structure that was less
than transparent. Both Politico and The
Atlantic covered some of
these aspects.
But with the news today
that the Carson campaign has lost top staff and up to as many as 20 staffers,
those issues may be academic. From ABC News via
Conservative Treehouse:
ABC News has more – After announcing his resignation from the Ben Carson campaign, former campaign manager
Barry Bennett tells ABC News that the staff changes were revealed in a
scheduled call this morning. The main change Carson wanted to make was with his
Communications Director Doug Watts, Bennett says.
Bennett
told the Republican presidential candidate on the call he would not support that
decision and told Carson “it’s time for me to go.” Bennett said Carson was
surprised and asked him to think about staying on as his campaign manager to
which Bennett quickly told him no.
“[Carson]
tried to blame some of the problems in the campaign on silly things and I said
Ben we all know the root of our problems, let’s not pretend it’s not Armstrong
Williams,” Bennett told ABC News on the phone. “Ben said I’ll talk to him, I’ll
talk to him. But I’ve heard that for nine months now.”
Who is Armstrong
Williams? According to a report
last August on The Hill:
One of the most
influential people in Ben Carson’s political orbit has no role in his actual
campaign.
Armstrong Williams, 56,
is a black conservative radio personality, a real estate investor, TV station
owner, publisher and former political operative for figures as diverse as the
late Sen. Strom Thurmond (R-S.C.) and Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas.
Williams does not fit the traditional profile of a
man-behind-the-candidate, yet he looms over the 2016 hopeful's world.
In interviews with
Carson, as well as top current and former campaign officials, the message is
clear: Carson and Williams come as one.
. . .
Williams’s forceful personality is in stark contrast to that of
Carson's, who has an other-worldly calm. He has been known to step in as
Carson’s enforcer when the presidential candidate would rather eschew
confrontation. He has a reputation as a fixer.
The Daily
Caller reports that
Armstrong Williams, Ben Carson’s business manager and advisor
said the neurosurgeon “is the only true authentic Evangelical Christian in the
race.”
Oddly
enough then, the cause of the resignations may relate to Williams’s support of
Louis Farrakhan and the Nation of Islam, as per a
blog at American Thinker titled
“Support of Farrakhan organization may force Ben Carson to separate from
longtime adviser".
For
background on Chris Christie’s fund-raising, posted earlier on this blogsite,
go here.
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