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Ben Carson ’73: new conservative icon

It’s not exactly brain surgery, figuring out what’s wrong with this country, says Ben Carson ’73: it’s the economy, stupid.

Actually, scratch the “stupid.” Carson, who is in fact a brain surgeon—director of pediatric neurosurgery at Johns Hopkins Hospital—as well as an author, literacy advocate, and up-from-poverty inspirational speaker, would like to see more “open and intelligent conversation, not people just casting aspersions.” His economic diagnosis, via Fox News: “The ship is about to go off the waterfall.”

Carson has had boundless opportunities to express his political and economic opinions in recent weeks, ever since he electrified the political right with his February 7 speech at the National Prayer Breakfast, where he criticized “the PC police,” Obamacare, and higher taxes for rich people while standing just a few feet from President Barack Obama.

“Ben Carson for President,” trumpeted the Wall Street Journal. TV and radio hosts rushed to line up interviews. The American Conservative Union invited him to speak at this weekend’s annual Conservative Political Action Conference, or CPAC, where Carson will share a Saturday morning “prayer breakfast” session with fellow Yalie Eric Metaxas ’84.

Asked whether he considers himself conservative, Carson told NPR: “I consider myself a logical person.” Asked whether he’ll run for office, he told ABC News: “That’s not my intention. But I always say, ‘I’ll leave that up to God.’”

Filed under Ben Carson, CPAC
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