Ben Carson Is No Herman Cain - He’s far more paranoid.

[DonViejo]

By Jamelle Bouie

As Ben Carson begins his run for the 2016 Republican nomination—he officially announced his campaign on Monday at a music hall in Detroit—it’s easy to compare him with Herman Cain, the last black American to play presidential politics in the GOP. But other than race, the two men are incomparable. Cain, a businessman and radio host, was a showman—a personality whose flamboyant defense of the Tea Party fueled a quick rise to conservative stardom and whose attacks on President Obama carried a racial comparison. The media, he said during his campaign, “Are … scared that a real black man may run against Barack Obama.”

Carson is far from exuberant—he speaks in calm, even tones—and joins the political stage after a long career in medicine and as a motivational speaker. A famed pediatric neurosurgeon, Carson is an icon in the black community. His book Gifted Hands—the story of his rise from inner-city Detroit to the pinnacle of his field—made its way to countless black kids in countless black homes. “Carson is a great American success story,” writes Joel Anderson for BuzzFeed, “a rags-to-riches hero who embodied achievement against long odds. His achievement turned him into an icon of black triumph, a Horatio Alger figure in hospital scrubs.”

But while his career was made in hospital wards and inner-city schools, his recent fame comes from his address at the 2013 National Prayer Breakfast, where he criticized Obamacare and offered his own alternative for health care reform. From there, he became a conservative celebrity, so famous that by the end of the year, supporters had founded a political action committee to draft Carson into the presidential race.

Carson’s announcement speech was light on substance, but it’s clear he doesn’t stray far from the rest of the Republican pack. He’s opposed to Obamacare, of course; called for an end to social programs that “create dependency”; and told supporters, “It’s time to rise up and take government back.”

With that said, there is one important difference between Carson’s rhetoric and that from the rest of the presidential field: It’s in the paranoid style. Throughout his speech, Carson made reference to the assorted conspiracies of the far right. People are afraid to speak up, he said, because the “IRS might audit them.” The government, he continues, just wants you to “keep your mouth shut.” Likewise, he says, we can’t trust unemployment statistics because, he claimed, “You can make the unemployment rate anything you want it to be.”

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http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/politics/2015/05/ben_carson_announces_his_presidential_run_his_political_rhetoric_is_incredibly.html

[arcane1]

1. Great, another "motivational speaker" playing the "I can out-crazy everyone else" game

It's going to be a long election season.

[Laffy Kat]

2. Many surgeons are psychopaths.

Not saying he is, but it's a common trait for that specialty. At the very least they are extreme narcissists--they just about have to be to do what they do. With 30-plus years of health care experience behind me, I just learned to stay as far away from surgeons as possible. The few I was forced to interact with were bat shit. Even other physicians think so.

[1StrongBlackMan]

3. Got this far (1st paragraph) and had to pause ...

A famed pediatric neurosurgeon, Carson is an icon in the black community

Carson is largely unknown in the Black Community ... hell, in any community that does not follow partisan politics.

Okay ... back to reading ...

[frylock]

4. He's more like Lee Mercer than he is like Herman Caine..

and you better believe that Jeb Bush is going to be all in his house with disease.