Ben Carson for President

by Justin Soutar

As we gradually head towards the end of the immoral, corrupt and disastrous Obama administration (thank goodness) and begin to approach the 2016 presidential election, the American public is faced with a bewildering menagerie of contenders for the Republican nomination. A number of these candidates, such as Senators Rand Paul and Marco Rubio and Governors Scott Walker, John Kasich, Bobby Jindal, Mike Huckabee, and Rick Perry, are men of sound character and principle with the right positions on many critical issues, any of whom would, in my opinion, probably make a good if not excellent president. Two of the candidates, Senators Rick Santorum and Ted Cruz, while also men of sound character and principle with the right positions on domestic issues, unfortunately espouse the aggressive interventionist foreign policy of the Bush administration championed by Israel’s elite radical Zionist minority that has fueled the growth of Islamic fundamentalism and destabilized the entire Middle East, just as John Paul II predicted would happen. Several contenders, including Governors Jeb Bush, Chris Christie, and Mitt Romney, are wealthy Republicans in name only who would do little to clean up the current fiscal, legal and moral mess in Washington. The rest of the field is an even more mixed bag of presidential wannabes, including exotic candidates such as billionaire celebrity Donald Trump and former HP executive Carly Fiorina, few if any of whom stand a real chance of winning their party’s nomination (much less the White House) next year.

This rather embarrassing spectacle of dozens of candidates vying for the Republican presidential nomination—among whom are eight to ten serious possibilities—evinces a major problem within the GOP that, if not acknowledged and corrected in the near future, risks negatively affecting its chances to reclaim the White House in 2016. It’s not for nothing that Democratic politicians and mainstream media pundits in the last few years have been repeating almost incessantly that Republicans are divided. What they say is true: Republicans are divided between principled Tea Party constitutionalists (Marco Rubio, Thom Tillis, Mia Love, etc.) and corrupt Republicans in name only (John Boehner, Thad Cochran, Lamar Alexander, etc)., and they are further divided on foreign policy between interventionists like Santorum and isolationists like Paul. Even worse than these divisions, however, is the fact that Republicans themselves are seemingly unaware of the seriousness of their division problem when it comes to a) nominating their best possible presidential candidate and b) winning the presidency. If they really want to do both next year, Republicans must hasten to recognize and address their own crisis of leadership. Their problem is not that they don’t have any leaders for the American public to rally behind; their problem is that they have too many such leaders. Like a plot of overcrowded and stunted garden vegetables competing for nourishment from a limited supply of soil nutrients, this unhealthily crowded field of would-be presidents is hungrily devouring supporters and voters from a limited electoral base, thus restricting the amount of support for each individual candidate and making it nearly impossible for any one of them to clearly dominate the GOP field as we head towards the all-important presidential primary elections.

If Republicans are truly serious about defeating Hillary Clinton or Joe Biden or whomever else the Democrats nominate in 2016, they must call an abrupt halt to their currently running game show, “Who wants to be the GOP nominee?” and discipline themselves to get down to business. Specifically, they must eliminate all longshots from consideration, cut the field down to their ten leading candidates, identify their strongest possible candidate from among those top ten who is realistically likely to win both the GOP nomination and the presidency, begin coalescing now around that single leader, and start working like mad to ensure that that particular candidate clinches the Republican nomination. That is the winning strategy the GOP must adopt if it intends to regain control of the White House in 2016. Unless the party achieves this kind of unity and focus within the next six months, its nominee will in all likelihood be another mediocre one who will go down to defeat in the next presidential election.

After all, only one candidate is going to win the Republican nomination for president. And only a strong candidate with a clear identity, impeccable character, traditional values, broad public appeal, and a super PAC working to mobilize the grassroots on his behalf will be able to defeat the likes of Hillary Clinton. Therefore, Republicans must be very careful whom they choose to nominate for the presidency. The worst possible choice would be to repeat the mistake of 2008 and 2012 by settling on a super-wealthy, big-government Republican establishment career politician like Jeb Bush or Chris Christie or Mitt Romney. That is a proven recipe for defeat. Such a Republican in name only bears too much similarity to his Democratic opponent both in reality and in the minds of voters and simply cannot generate sufficient enthusiasm among Republican and independent voters to decisively defeat that opponent. If the Democratic nominee were a Democrat in name only, this approach might work, but the Democrats themselves have enough sense not to nominate someone who is a Republican in Democratic garb. In next year’s open contest between two presidential candidates, their respective identities must be absolutely clear. Only a genuine Republican will soundly defeat a genuine Democrat. And these days, a genuine Republican usually means a Tea Party Republican.

So which leading presidential candidate should the Republican Party choose to rally around to ensure it wins the White House in 2016? According to a recent NBC/WSJ national poll taken June 22, 2015, the top ten contenders are, in descending order of popularity:

1) Jeb Bush,

2) Scott Walker,

3) Marco Rubio,

4) Ben Carson,

5) Mike Huckabee,

6) Rand Paul,

7) Rick Perry,

8) Ted Cruz,

9) Chris Christie, and

10) Carly Fiorina.

As wealthy Republicans in name only attempting to buy the nomination, Bush and Christie are liabilities to their party who must be firmly rejected. Fiorina is not sufficiently well known or supported to win the necessary delegates to clinch the nomination. Scott Walker may be a great governor, but his positions on certain issues are controversial within the party, which makes him less than an ideal nominee. Although a genuine conservative with some public appeal, Mike Huckabee is having trouble getting more than ten percent in any of the polls, while Rick Perry cannot get out of single digits. The same goes for Ted Cruz, who would be too similar to President Bush on foreign policy. That leaves Marco Rubio, Ben Carson, and Rand Paul as the three strongest contenders for the GOP nomination. There is little doubt that any one of these three men would be able to defeat Hillary Clinton or Joe Biden and win the presidency in 2016. They are all trustworthy conservatives, Christian men of good character and moral values, with reputed integrity and common sense and the right positions on the critical issues facing America today. They are all honest and proven public servants, not slick-talking career politicians, and they are all blessed with outstanding leadership qualities that the American people are looking for in a president. The only remaining question is: Which of these three leading candidates should Republicans choose to nominate? Let’s take a closer look at these top contenders.

Elected to the U.S. Senate for Kentucky as part of the Tea Party Republican landslide elections of 2010, Rand Paul has earned a solid reputation as a no-nonsense conservative in Washington who stubbornly refuses to compromise his core principles for the sake of political advantage. He is the son of respected former Congressman and former Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul, who was a Tea Party Republican decades ahead of his time. But while his father never gained sufficient backing to win the Republican nomination for president, the younger Paul’s public appeal is significantly broader. He is known and liked for introducing and gaining political support for the Life at Conception Act, which if passed by Congress and signed into law would protect unborn children throughout the United States from abortion. He is also known and liked for his vocal opposition to unconstitutional Obama administration policies, including the ever-unpopular Affordable Care Act, executive amnesty for illegal immigrants, and the administration’s massive phone surveillance program. A true statesman with decent looks to match his character, Paul has the force of personality and the oratorical skills necessary to challenge Hillary Clinton and put her on the defensive—and there is no doubt he would do just that. A head-to-head matchup with Clinton not long ago showed Paul leading her by double digits. The main caveat to choosing Rand Paul as the Republican presidential nominee is that he would fail to gain significant support from black and Hispanic voters, majorities of whom are actually conservative on social issues despite their tendency to vote Democratic. Because these groups of minority voters will comprise an increasing share of the U.S. electorate in the years ahead, Republicans must actively reach out to them if they want to win future elections. But if nominated, Paul would likely still manage to win the White House in 2016 despite this handicap.

Another freshman senator from the Tea Party landslide of 2010, Marco Rubio has similarly stellar conservative credentials. In addition to vigorously supporting the Life at Conception Act and opposing ObamaCare and executive amnesty, he has introduced or co-sponsored several bills to protect religious liberties and moral conscience rights. The son of impoverished Cuban Catholic immigrants to Florida, Rubio’s story of achieving the American Dream has inspired millions of people across the nation. Elected to the Senate while still in his thirties, Rubio is at forty-four the youngest presidential candidate from either major party. Rubio’s youth and optimistic personality, his Hispanic identity, his humble immigrant background, and his good looks combine to give him movie-star charisma reminiscent of what Barack Obama enjoyed in 2008. The prospect of America’s first Hispanic president is an exciting one that offers the GOP a serious opportunity to change the political landscape by drawing millions of Hispanic voters into the Republican Party. It would make good sense for the Republicans to nominate this guy because he would pull a large share of the Hispanic and black vote--and likely a majority of the Catholic vote as well--away from Hillary Clinton, resulting in a landslide GOP victory for the White House. Rubio would undoubtedly be an excellent choice as the Republican presidential nominee.
 

The third frontrunner for the Republican presidential nomination differs markedly from the other two leading candidates, as well as from the rest of the GOP field, in several respects. A world-renowned pediatric neurosurgeon, best-selling author, gifted speaker and noted philanthropist, Ben Carson is the only African-American in the race, the only leading Republican candidate with no previous political experience, and the only candidate running for president by popular demand. Carson’s famous speech at the 2013 National Prayer Breakfast, in which he frankly compared America’s moral and economic decline to that of ancient Rome and courageously condemned ObamaCare with President Obama himself sitting nearby, propelled him onto the national stage. His meteoric rise from refusing to even consider running for president three years ago to being a leading candidate today is a tribute to the organizational skills and dedicated efforts of his super PAC, formerly the National Draft Ben Carson for President Committee, now The 2016 Committee. Here are nine reasons why Dr. Benjamin Solomon Carson should be chosen as the Republican presidential nominee in 2016:

1. Ben Carson is a universally admired example of the American Dream. From his inauspicious poverty-stricken single-parent childhood in a Detroit ghetto, Carson rose to become the nation’s leading pediatric neurosurgeon at Johns Hopkins University at the age of thirty-three. Over the following three decades, he drew worldwide acclaim for skillfully performing thousands of life-saving brain surgeries with an extremely low patient mortality rate. During the past twenty-one years, through the Carson Scholars Fund, he and his wife have been working to reform America’s education system by encouraging better academic performance and helping promising students from low-income families get the higher education they deserve. He has received thirty-eight honorary doctorates and numerous awards in recent years including the NAACP’s Spingarn Award, the Horatio Alger award given to extraordinary self-made Americans, and the Presidential Medal of Freedom, America’s highest civilian award. Jesse Jackson has called him a role model for all the youth of today, and he was ranked in a December 2014 poll as the sixth most admired man in America. Because he is admired and respected by Americans of all races and backgrounds, Carson will win a large number of votes in the 2016 presidential election.

2. Ben Carson is a man of devout Christian faith, good moral character and traditional values. A large majority of the American people are still Christian, and they are tired of radically secularist politicians like President Obama who relentlessly attack their traditional values of faith, family, and freedom; furthermore, they are similarly weary of middle-of-the-road politicians who profess traditional values but refuse to vigorously defend them when they are attacked. By contrast, Carson is a devout, Bible-believing Christian and a man of prayer, humility and compassion; he lives according to the Ten Commandments and believes in the sanctity of every human life, religious freedom, traditional marriage, and the importance of the nuclear family to a healthy society. Carson is also a firm believer in the realities of the natural law, unalienable rights, and ordered liberty upon which the Founders built this nation. Carson not only shares these values with Middle Americans, he will consistently articulate, uphold and defend them as president, just as he has done his whole life.

3. Ben Carson is a man of wisdom, common sense, courage, and calm decisive action in critical situations. At this time of national crisis, we desperately need a great and wise leader who can discern what should be done in a given situation, who can make the right decision, and who has the courage to follow through on that decision regardless of political considerations and negative criticism. As someone who has been reading the Bible’s Book of Proverbs daily for years, Carson is accustomed to allowing God’s own wisdom to guide his daily life. Additionally, as a brain surgeon for nearly thirty years, Carson gained abundant experience making critical life or death decisions under tremendous pressure. God has blessed him with the ability to remain calm, think things through carefully, and make the right decision amid difficult circumstances. As president, Carson will do this for America, offering the wise leadership that is necessary to return our nation to greatness regardless of the challenges that we may face.

4. Ben Carson is a strict constitutionalist. Unlike President Obama, who has exceeded his authority in violation of the Constitution on numerous occasions throughout his presidency, Ben Carson will govern America in strict accordance with the Constitution. This is because he prizes the Constitution as a safeguard of the rights and freedom of American citizens against the general tendency of the federal government to assume more and more power. As he wrote in One Nation (p. 172): “The Constitution was written primarily to protect the rights of the people and not the right of the government to rule the people. It restrains the natural tendencies of government to expand while disregarding the rights of its constituents. Our freedoms are safe as long as we abide by its principles.” Carson understands that his primary role as president will be to enforce all laws passed by Congress that do not conflict with the Constitution. He will also appoint justices to the Supreme Court who will interpret the Constitution objectively as the Founders meant it to be interpreted, not subjectively as they think it should be interpreted.

5. Ben Carson is an honest citizen statesman, not a corrupt career politician. Poll after poll reveals that Americans have had enough of corrupt establishment politicians in both the major parties. In the 2014 Congressional and gubernatorial elections, they overwhelmingly rejected establishment politicians in favor of honest statesmen and women whom they could trust to represent the best interests of their state and nation. As a citizen statesman, President Carson will focus on doing what is best for America rather than on advancing his political career. After all, Ben Carson never intended to run for public office, and he is only running for president now because millions of Americans have urged him to do so. 

6. God will reunite and heal our divided and broken land through Ben Carson. Our nation is currently more divided than at any time since the Civil War. For example, the gap between rich and poor has never been wider than it is today. President Obama and other unscrupulous politicians have exploited and exacerbated these divisions to their own advantage, stirring up hatred between whites and blacks, rich and poor, men and women, young and old. These social divisions threaten to tear our nation apart. Because he is so widely admired and respected across social boundaries, nominating and electing Ben Carson for president will bring Americans back together and restore American unity. Thus will begin the process of healing the hurts and brokenness these divisions have caused. Carson’s official campaign slogan, “One nation under God, with liberty and justice for all,” encapsulates this theme of unity based on America’s founding principles.

7. Ben Carson is a great communicator. Ever since that historic address at the 2013 National Prayer Breakfast, Ben Carson has enjoyed a growing reputation as the most articulate conservative since Ronald Reagan. Although many of the ten currently leading Republican candidates would make a good president, none can match Carson’s unique ability to take complicated issues and break them down into clear, simple terms that anyone can understand. This ability to communicate effectively with potential voters gives Carson a crucial advantage over all the other Republican presidential contenders. The GOP needs a presidential candidate who can connect not just with its own base, but with the American people in general. Here again Carson fits the bill.

8. Ben Carson has a super PAC in his corner. If you’re a presidential candidate these days, you stand little real chance of winning either major party’s nomination unless you have a super PAC separate from your official presidential committee working full time on your behalf to organize and mobilize primary voters in key states at least two years prior to the presidential election. It was a super PAC that enabled freshman senator Barack Obama to snatch the Democratic nomination away from Hillary Clinton in 2008, and it was a super PAC that enabled Mitt Romney to defeat his rivals for the Republican nomination in 2012. Without the National Draft Ben Carson for President Committee and its successor, The 2016 Committee, Ben Carson would not have risen to his current position as a leading presidential candidate. Thanks to his super PAC, Carson has a realistic chance of winning enough state primary elections, and thus enough delegates, to actually clinch the GOP nomination for president. The same just can’t be said for Rick Santorum or Carly Fiorina.

9. Ben Carson is sure to win the White House. As a respected leader in the African-American community, GOP presidential nominee Ben Carson will automatically pull more than enough black votes away from Hillary Clinton to ensure her defeat on Election Day 2016. If Carson were to receive just 17 percent of the black vote nationwide, Clinton would lose all the critical swing states and Carson would win the election. Polling data indicate that Carson will actually win at least double that minimum percentage of the African-American vote. Furthermore, polling research also indicates that Carson will win a large minority, if not a majority, of the Hispanic vote. The result will be a landslide Carson victory. If Republicans want to be sure of winning the White House, their logical choice will be to nominate Ben Carson for president.

Photo by Gage Skidmore

To summarize: The Republican Party now has an exciting and historic opportunity to nominate a presidential candidate who is universally admired and respected, who is a great communicator, who shares the religious and moral values of Middle America, who will who will govern wisely in accordance with the Constitution, who will help to reunite and heal America, who can win the nomination, and who can decisively win the presidency. At this critical juncture in our nation’s history, to abandon this golden opportunity by settling for yet another Republican in name only loser such as Jeb Bush would be the epitome of foolishness. The GOP will deserve to lose again if it attempts to send another mediocre candidate to the White House. Now is the time for the Republican Party to unite around its single best candidate for president of the United States--Ben Carson--and work tirelessly to ensure he wins the nomination. It would help further Carson’s cause if some of the other Republican presidential candidates, especially those stuck in the longshot arena, were to voluntarily withdraw from the race and declare their support for Ben Carson. These other candidates should try to put the good of their party, and especially the good of their country as a whole, ahead of their individual interests and political careers. As the old saying goes, in union there is strength. Excessive individualism is hurting the GOP more than anything else. What is needed now is a spirit of generous self-sacrifice on behalf of the common good. America stands in dire need of Ben Carson’s leadership. It’s time for the Republican Party to acknowledge that fact and act accordingly.

Copyright © 2015 Justin D. Soutar. All rights reserved.