Is Ben Carson About to Tick Off the Tea Party?
In a new interview, conservative hero Dr. Ben Carson seemingly contradicts the tea party line in a way that may stir some anger.
Promoting his new book One Nation in a Q&A with American Thinker, Carson pleads for conservative voters to elect Republican candidates at all cost, even if the candidate might not be Ronald Reagan incarnate.
“People in the Republican Party need to recognize whoever wins the primary needs to be supported,” Carson says. “Whether you like them completely, or not, you cannot say ‘I am taking the marbles and going home.’ That is what has been happening over the past elections and is why conservatives and people with common sense lose. We need to remember that we must elect people into office that might agree with us 80 percent of the time rather than having someone in office that disagrees with you nearly 100 percent of the time.”
Carson continues, “If all the conservatives would have voted in 2012 [Mitt] Romney would have won by a landslide. Those people who did not vote and were disgusted, are they happy now? I doubt it. I think politically the left are smarter than we are right now. We need a strategy and to be pragmatic.”
Since the 2010 midterm elections, the tea party faction of GOP voters have made it a mission to oust Republican incumbents who aren’t deemed sufficiently conservative. The latest example was made out of former House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA) who was unseated in a surprising upset with the help of hard-right conservative commentators like Laura Ingraham, who boosted the opposition. Sen. Thad Cochran (R-MS) nearly lost his primary race in a similar way.
After Cochran won his primary, Fox News’s Sean Hannity encouraged Mississippi voters not to vote for the “despicable” Cochran in the general election, effectively calling on Republicans to give the Senate seat to Democrats.
Tea partiers affronted by Carson’s views on winning elections may take solace, however, in his opinion on another conservative favorite.
Asked by Parade for his thoughts on a possible presidential bid by Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) in 2016, Carson called him “a good friend” and said he’s “the kind of person who really could make a difference.”
Carson previously drew the ire of his tea party fans when he told Glenn Beck that people have no right to own “semi-automatic weapons” in urban areas.
[Image via screengrab]
