When Jeb Bush announced he was packing it in on Saturday night, I thought that the next person to withdraw would be Ben Carson. After all, he has barely even registered as a blip in the first three primaries. More importantly, two of them were in states chock full of social conservatives, an audience conventional wisdom suggested should have flocked to him like moths to a flame. But apparently the good doctor is looking at a different race than we are. He let it be known on Tuesday’s “Fox & Friends” that he’s staying in–at least for now.
The gang on the curvy couch wanted to know why Carson is determined to stay in, even in the face of pressure to get out in order to make it easier to stop or slow down Donald Trump’s momentum. Watch here.
When Brian Killmeade asked him why Carson wasn’t willing to withdraw yet, Carson said he saw no sense in leaving “after three or four primaries and caucuses.” He believed that with the field starting to winnow out, it would be a lot easier to talk about the issues of the day. After all, nothing less than “the future of our country and our children” is at stake.
Steve Doocy wondered why Carson is still keeping at it even though he’s finished in single digits in the early primaries. Carson’s response?
“Remember the story of the tortoise and the hare? If you give up on the tortoise too early, you’re only going to have the hare, who is exhausted and not very effective.”
I have to guess that the “hare” is Donald Trump. Apparently Carson must be banking on Trump letting his foot off the accelerator, believing that he’ll get to the finish line ahead of everyone else. That would be believable if Carson was the only fundie in the race.
But in the last few months, Ted Cruz seems to have established himself as the candidate of the social conservative wing. In Iowa and South Carolina–two states where the Republican primary electorate has a strong social conservative tint–Carson flat-out tanked. He finished a bad fourth in Iowa, with only 9 percent of the vote, and dead last in South Carolina. He has a grand total of three delegates–all from Iowa–and has won just over 77,000 votes. Even allowing for any funny business on Cruz’ part in Iowa, that’s pathetic. Carson also forgets that there are at least two other tortoises in the race–Marco Rubio and John Kasich.
If Carson is banking on playing the tortoise to Trump’s hare, he’ll have to hope Trump goes to sleep on Super Tuesday. That day, there will be primaries in eight states with a bumper crop of social conservatives–Alabama, Arkansas, Colorado, Georgia, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Texas, and Virginia. Knowing what I know about the religious right, at some point it’s going to want to unite behind one candidate–especially since a number of fundies are already scared of Trump getting the nomination. Unless Carson can make a good showing in some of these states, it’s going to be awfully hard for him to overtake Cruz. And there will be a lot of pressure on him to withdraw and allow the social conservatives to close ranks.
The moral of “The Tortoise and the Hare” is “Slow and steady wins the race.” But if Carson is banking on Trump falling asleep and the other two tortoises going too slow, that isn’t much of a strategy.
