As a computer science type, it reminds me of William Shockley: His team at Bell Labs invented the transistor, revolutionizing literally all electronics. He fell off the deep end into eugenics and racism.
(People attempting to escape his dictatorial assholery is why Silicon Valley exists, BTW.)
He’s sure picking up campaigning pretty well. He’s the only guy in either field with positive favorability. Not bad for someone with no experience.
And he is still not what we should choose as president.
Perhaps not, but he’s demolished the argument that a neurosurgeon can’t be a genius at something else too. His campaign is arguably going better than anyone else’s in either party.
So what? The guy’s a nutbag like the rest.
His problem right now is that he’s getting advice and policy instruction from right-wingers, and not very good right-wingers at that. He needs to get some moderates and liberals on his team.
Carson is still below Trump and as Trump has gone down so it is Carson, other Republican candidates are gaining on them now as the most recent polls are telling us as of today.
Make up your mind; I thought his favorability was because he’s an outsider, not in spite of it.
The other outsiders don’t have positive favorability.
The other outsiders aren’t brain surgeons, either.
Who argued that? I think the more common assumption is that a brain surgeon is a generally smart guy. Carson has certainly demolished that for me, whether political campaigning turns out to be a strong suit or not.
You really think he’s running a good campaign? As opposed to being a beneficiary of certain trends and dynamics of the Republican party and political landscape. What would you point to as an example of a particularly astute move by Carson?
I can see the value in making a “Ben Carson for president” thread as a kind of thought exercise, but you can’t possibly think this man is remotely electable. Aside from some entirely ignorant and un-American comments on Islam, today his campaign manager had to stop an interview for him when it got uncomfortable. This is not the behavior of a well-coordinated campaign. Ben Carson is a vanity candidate, and in my opinion a total joke.
Staying out of the fray in first two debates. He really only stepped in when directly called on and he mostly had well prepared answers that played to his audience. It’s a “you can’t say dumb shit if you aren’t talking” strategy well spiced with staying above the ugliness. Given his experience and the field it’s hard to see a better strategy in retrospect.
It only gets him so far. Eventually the horse needs to sing. It bought almost two months for singing lessons though.
If those dynamics were the main factor, Carson would be seeing similar numbers to Fiorina and Trump. He’s doing much better than them because people see him as a guy with the temperament, intelligence, and personal morality to be President. What he lacks is even the most basic understanding of the issues, something he’s going to have to work on if he wants to get any further. He also needs to learn how to deal with the media. He’s whining about the media misreporting his remarks. They do that. The way you handle that is just to say, “What I said was…” and argue your case. He also needs a better variety of viewpoints in his campaign. Right now he’s just a right-wing sock puppet.
As for what he’s done that’s astute, he’s maintaining a calm demeanor, which gives the impression that he’s a serious candidate rather than an angry blowhard outsider. Without being so polished like Fiorina that he doesn’t even seem like an outsider at all.
It’s not really brilliant or astute though, because that’s just who he is. But that’s why his team believes in him. He’s an easy candidate to sell without changing him much, and he’s smart enough to learn what he needs to know to debate policy with the Clintons of the world. He’s still got a full year before he has to share a stage with a Democratic opponent.
I don’t know why you’re convinced he’s that smart about any subject aside from medicine. From what I’ve seen of him, on politics, he’s as dumb as Sarah Palin.
He’s not smart at politics. Yet. But he’s smarter than he was a few months ago and I assume he’ll only get better as the campaign goes on. Unlike Palin, his intellectual capacity has been proven. Actually, unlike pretty much anyone else in politics other than say, Rush Holt(A nuclear physicist in Congress). Carson isn’t wrong when he questions the intelligence of your average politician. It’s a bit like calling actors smart because they can play a smart guy on TV.
How is he smarter now than a few months ago?
His poll numbers prove it.
Fewer dumb statements, he’s a little more under control now. He was a gaffe a minute in April, now it’s more like a gaffe a month. And the gaffes are less serious. The Muslim thing made headlines, but that has more to do with the timing, and the fact is few liberals would disagree with the substance of what he said anyway. I doubt a devout Muslim who supports Sharia law over our Constitution would get very many Democratic votes.