Backers of Dr. Ben Carson, the neurosurgeon who made a splash with conservatives in 2013, say they have raised $4 million and are setting up a campaign apparatus in the hopes that Carson will run for President.
Along with the $4 million in donations, the super PAC called RunBenRun.org also collected 200,000 signatures on an Internet-based petition urging Carson to run for the 2016 GOP nomination for President.
“I don’t like the direction in which the county is going,” said spokesman John Phillips Sousa IV. “Carson doesn’t whine like some other Republicans. He brings a solution to the table.”
Sousa also told Fox News that he is in the beginning stages of creating a campaign team in case Carson agrees to run.
The organization was started soon after Dr. Carson spoke before the national prayer breakfast last year, where liberals charged him with purposefully attacking President Obama–who was sitting only feet away from the podium.
Sousa thinks that Carson, an African American, can appeal to many Democrats and could pull enough votes from them to push him over the top in an election. And on the plus side, Carson has already garnered the support of conservatives.
In 2013, he spoke before an adoring crowd at the Conservative Political Action Conference where he hinted that he could run for president.
The Doctor repeated his CPAC appearance in 2014 to similar effect.
Carson’s CPAC speech wasn’t the only time he’s spoken out publicly about possibly running for president. Keeping the thought alive, in February of 2013 he said he’d “leave that up to God.”
His high profile hasn’t come without a few controversies, though. In April of last year, Carson was chosen as a commencement speaker for Johns Hopkins, but liberals forced the school to withdraw the invite because of comments he made about same-sex marriage.
Angering many of his supporters, Carson later appeared on MSNBC to apologize for upsetting gays over his comments in support of traditional marriage.
But Dr. Carson’s name still brings in praise from conservatives, and at this year’s CPAC, he placed third in the presidential straw poll.
Follow Warner Todd Huston on Twitter @warnerthuston or email the author at igcolonel@hotmail.com.
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