Many people have wondered why Ben Carson is still in the 2016 Presidential race. The man himself has stated that as long as “millions” of people are still backing him (there is no evidence of these millions), then he will continue to run. He maintains this attitude despite not winning a single primary or caucus. Super Tuesday resulted in the candidate receiving a pithy 8 delegates, a full 17 behind John Kasich, who had 81 less than Marco Rubio. Furthermore, most sportsbooks don’t even have Ben Carson’s betting odds listed because he is such a long shot. So why is he still in the race? They say any publicity is good, but this is just making him look like a complete joke.
The GOP is in agreement that Carson should quit while he’s, er…“ahead”. On Wednesday afternoon Carson stated he would not attend Thursday night’s debate, but has yet to drop out of the race completely. Party insiders have been hinting that they are going to ask Dr. Carson to drop out of the race, and encourage him to run for a Senate seat in Florida. We haven’t heard a reaction from Carson yet, but he seemed perfectly happy to keep on campaigning on Tuesday. Interestingly enough it is Marco Rubio, who only won one state on Tuesday (Minnesota), who’s seat Ben Carson would be taking. Rubio has stated that we will not seek re-election, even though his odds of becoming the Republican nominee are pretty low right now.
Ben Carson has stated that he has “been offered many deals” to leave the race, but he has no intention of quitting. Even his adviser Armstrong Williams has said that “there is no pathway” to the GOP nomination, but also says that Carson is “not trying to help” any of the other candidates, and that his “constituency and base” support him staying in the race even if it is a lost cause. Staying in the race makes sense in a certain way. Ben Carson is a retired Neurosurgeon, not a politician. Taking a seat in the Florida Senate would be much more of a political endeavor, at least in Carson and Williams’ views. Some may also argue that being the leader of the free world is quite political as well. There’s also a chance he’s hoping for the second spot on the ticket but Trump has stated he’s looking towards a seasoned politician for the VP slot, so this is highly unlikely.
It seems that Ben Carson has taken the reigns of his campaign, and is now making all the decisions while the support follows his lead. Williams has stated that the campaign is awaiting Carson’s word to end the ordeal, if he chooses to at all. The problem is, he has told his fans that he will stay in the race for them, for an ideology. But the longer he stays in, the more he starts to look like a circus freak through the eyes of the media. Granted, he hasn’t stooped to the level of throwing insults at the top of the mountain in a vain attempt to outshine the master of slander (Trump>Rubio), but he is lingering around long after his betting odds on the 2016 election went off the board, and if the odds makers aren’t giving you a chance at all while you’re in the race, you don’t have a chance!