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| In this Oct. 24, 2015, photo, Republican presidential candidateBen Carson greets audience members after speaking outside the Alpha Gamma Rho fraternity at Iowa State University during a campaign stop in Ames, Iowa. Carson and the other Republican presidential candidates are getting ready for the third GOP debate on Oct. 28, in Boulder, Colo. |
COCONUT
CREEK, Fla. (AP) -- On the eve of the his party's third debate,
Republican presidential candidate Ben Carson promised not to curb his
penchant for using extreme examples to prove his points, such as
equating abortion with slavery and comparing Islamic State fighters to
patriots of the American Revolution.
"I don't
buy the PC stuff. I just don't buy it," Carson said in a Tuesday
interview with The Associated Press. He said the country can discuss
complicated issues as adults, and he suggested people could learn from
his example.
"One of my goals is to get us to
mature as a society," he said. "We should be mature enough to be able to
talk about things without going into a tizzy."
To
date, Carson's style has not affected his climb through the GOP's ranks
to challenge Donald Trump as a front-runner for the Republican
nomination. Indeed, many conservatives embrace the unvarnished approach
of the retired neurosurgeon who has never before run for office.
Yet
Carson's own advisers worry the rhetorical grenades may complicate his
ability to go far in the competitive and still unsettled Republican
field.
Beyond his outsider status, Carson's
appeal comes largely from his identity as a mild-mannered physician with
a measured approach to the rough-and-tumble of politics. Regular
references to Nazis and slavery, his advisers suggest, could threaten to
obscure his larger message as a man with the temperament to quell the
acrimony of Washington.
"It is not a
(deliberate) strategy," said Carson's communications director, Doug
Watts, pointing specifically to Carson's decision to use the Holocaust
as a way to illustrate why the U.S. shouldn't enact tougher gun
restrictions.
"The Nazis may not be the most
perfect comparison," Watts said. "We've spoken to him several times and
said, 'You can find better examples,' and he understands that."
Yet
a few minutes later, in the interview with AP, Carson again argued
against gun control by referencing the Nazis and repeated his recent
comments about abortion and slavery.
"What happened in Nazi Germany can never happen again unless we forget it, unless we won't talk about it," Carson said.
He
noted that he first linked abortion and slavery two decades ago, as
part of his shift from supporting abortion rights to opposing abortion
in virtually all cases.
The only major black
candidate in the 2016 field of either party, Carson recounted Tuesday
how two of his ancestors, brother and sister, were separated by
different slave owners.
"It always makes me tear up a little bit when I think about what people had to go through," he said.
"I
was never pro-abortion, but I was pro-choice," he said. "I felt that
even though I didn't believe in it, I didn't really have the right to
say what anybody else did. And the thing that really changed my mind
about that was thinking ... that if the abolitionists said that, said,
'Well, I don't believe in slavery, but everybody else can do whatever
they want,' I think maybe we may still have slavery."
Carson
also often uses extreme moments from his own life when talking with
voters, including stories about his violent upbringing in inner-city
Detroit. At a public event Tuesday to accept the endorsement of cage
fighter Vitor Belfort, Carson said his temper as a teenager prompted him
to try "to stab another teenager" years ago.
"By
the grace of God, he had on a large metal buckle ... and the knife
blade struck it and broke," Carson said. "It shows you how God, he took a
knife that I was trying to kill somebody with, and he gave me a knife
to save lives."
Carson's place in preference
polls hasn't been affected negatively by his statements that he would
not support electing a Muslim as president, his equating the passion of
Islamic State militants in the Middle East to that of America's
Revolutionary War soldiers, and suggesting that prison terms lead some
inmates to choose homosexuality.
Even as he spent subsequent days explaining each remark, his fundraising and polls numbers often improved.
"Dr.
Carson isn't bound by having to say what you think you have to say, and
that's refreshing," supporter Rick Chaffin, a 60-year-old Air Force
retiree, said recently at one of the candidate's book signings in
Georgia.
Matt Strawn, a former Iowa Republican
Party chairman, pointed to Carson's months of outreach in the first
caucus state. "Iowa caucus-goers really feel they know who Ben Carson is
as a man," he said, "which may help explain why these kind of
headline-grabbing statements aren't really having a negative effect."
Watts,
the Carson aide, said that for all the staff concerns, the candidate's
preparations for the Wednesday debate have not included instructions on
avoiding references to slavery or Nazis.
"He'll find his equilibrium," Watts said. "That I'm sure."
The candidate, meanwhile, said he has no qualms about taking the stage as a front-runner alongside Trump: "I relish it."
