A.B. Stoddard: How serious is Ben Carson?

Ben Carson has been a delightful addition to the 2016 presidential campaign. We are in dire need of more of his trademark decency and calm — but don’t count on it much longer.

While the former neurosurgeon has been tanking in the polls of late he has also been on an expensive direct mail binge that has neither helped to build a hefty operation nor to position him for the long haul. The Wall Street Journal report on his finances this week showed the campaign spent more than it took in during October, that 83 percent of its dollars are spent on fundraising and that serious questions surrounding spending practices have led supporters to question the motives of his campaign.

Harold Doley, a friend of Carson’s going back 20 years who served in the Reagan administration, hosted a fundraiser for Carson on Oct. 4. He subsequently told the Journal that Carson operatives refused to change what has proven an expensive, ineffective strategy because they are all profiting from it.

“It costs 55 cents in the Carson campaign to raise a dollar. So if you look at, ‘Oh he raised $20 million, what is the net to the campaign?’ Most of that is going out every month in consulting fees to these guys.”

A joy ride intended to enrich operatives and sell books would be a serious blow to the true believers who have given at unprecedented rates to the kindly doctor. The Wall Street Journal reported this fall that 98 percent of his second-quarter take was donations of $200 or less, quite a contrast to former GOP nominee Mitt Romney who had only attracted 7 percent of those small donations in the second quarter of 2011.

In early November that seemed a good wager, as Carson led some polls. Yet now, while he still remains in the top five of GOP primary candidates in most polling, his is the worst trajectory of rapidly declining support.

This has been largely due to the loss of evangelicals, who transitioned to supporting Texas Sen. Ted Cruz after Carson’s weak responses to questions about national security policy in the wake of the attacks in Paris in late November and in California in December. Carson plummeted 18 points in one poll in a month while taking several other double-digit tumbles in others.

A look at his direct mail product suggests the campaign could be spreading the message a bit too far and wide, and at a steep price.

One sample, received by a voter who had never contributed to any candidate ever, contained a letter and a personalized sketch of Carson. Under the sketch the candidate writes: “This portrait I’ve sent you was commissioned just so I could give it to you. That you will have it makes it very special to me.” Now we know why he spent so much money on it.

The next graph of the letter reads: “I hope you see the same thing I do when you look at the sketch — a man who is at peace, a man of conviction, a man who is humbled by your values, your faith, your patriotic heart.” And a man spending too much on direct mailings.

Carson spokesman Doug Watts says it’s all good. He told the Journal this week that campaign cash often must be paid out in advance for future expenses and future activities. And two months ago he told The Atlantic their “innovate approach” was not only sustainable but “strategic” and “profitable.” He added, “We have our own approach. It’s much more akin to the Obama operation in 2007 and 2008, and way off the page of the normal Republican playbook.” 

It’s unlikely the Carson strategy will one day be compared to the innovative Obama model, but time — and dollars — will tell. 

Stoddard is an associate editor of The Hill.