Ben Carson's what if?

Every four years I start scrutinizing the RealClearPolitics website, which has lots of columns and lots of polls. This morning the most interesting numbers are these: in a head-to-head matchup of Ben Carson and Hillary Clinton, Carson is ahead 48 percent to 43 percent. He does the best of any Republican candidate against Clinton.

Right now, Donald Trump wins support because he’s a bad guy. Carson wins support because he’s a good guy. Parents are not hoping their kids will grow up to be a Trump, unless the lure of big bucks is exceptionally strong. Many parents would like their kids to grow up to be a Carson.

It will be tough for any of the contenders to go after Carson in a debate—they will end up looking like bullies. Never before has turning the other cheek played so well as not only the right thing to do but the savvy thing to do. So, if Carson continues to poll strongly and “progressive” forces begin to see his 2,000-year-old wisdom as a threat, the knights of the keyboard—aka liberal reporters, aka hired guns—will start assaulting him.

Christophobic reporters will spin as wacky every word Carson has uttered on evolution and a host of other subjects. The big liberal webzine Salon’s first paragraph about Carson two days ago sneered at “Ben Carson, he of a soft voice and a love of comparing liberals to Nazis and slave owners.” But even Salonhad to honor Carson’s sincerity: “You get the sense not only that he does go to church, but that religion is why he’s abandoned all common sense and become the reactionary that he is.”

Salonalso grabbed from a smaller webzine, Alternet, a story with these headline gems: “Ben Carson just gets scarier and scarier: Dr. Ben wants our college students to fink on their professors. …” Carson was merely pointing out the extreme left tilt of professors—“[I]t’s not appropriate for public funding to be used to indoctrinate students …”—and saying students should speak up. Some reporters, for once following Donald Trump’s lead, will report that Carson is a Seventh-day Adventist and try to make that denomination seem cultish.

Christophobic reporters will parse innocent sentences. For example, Carson said in the interview with WORLD three years ago, “We were desperately poor, but between the covers of those books I could go anywhere, be anybody, do anything. I began to imagine myself in the laboratory conducting experiments; discovering new galaxies, microcosms, knowing stuff that nobody else knew.” Some columnist will undoubtedly say that when Carson looks at poverty he is “blaming the victim.” Carson escaped through hard work and creativity, so why can’t others?

Much as I esteem Carson, I’ve thought his inexperience in the rough-and-tumble world of national campaigning and Washington intrigue will eventually sink him. So far, though, he has survived every attempt at character assassination. We’ll report with fascination. Will Carson be able to dodge the nuclear bombs that will fall on him if he hangs onto front-runner status? The title of a classic by theologian Reinhold Niebuhr might encapsulate the Carson project: Moral Man and Immoral Society.