Ben Carson Suspends Campaign For....Book Tour?

by JASmius



And right as he's become the GOP co-frontrunner, too.

Remember that "fire in the belly" question from several months back?  Here you go:

Republican presidential contender Dr. Ben Carson has put his public campaign events on hold for two more weeks to go on book tour for his new tome A More Perfect Union and catch up on fundraising events. The campaign has been careful to separate campaign events and the book tour, and doesn’t want to classify the tour as related to the campaign in any way. This week he is catching up on fundraising events and will be back on his book tour next week making stops in Texas, Oklahoma, Missouri, Kansas, Nebraska and Iowa. So for the next two weeks, Carson won’t be appearing at any public “campaign events.”

I suppose one could describe that as an example of his "scrupulous ethics".

Jim Geraghty, though, is still incredulous:

Who chooses to stop doing public campaign events just as they catch up to the front-runner? The man has already written and sold a lot of books. (His presidential memoir would be a good seller, too!) Why on Earth would any serious candidate for president decide to stop campaigning at a moment like this for some book-signings and readings?

You know my adage that Democrats' problem is that they want power too much, and Republicans' problem is that they don't want power enough?  I think that can be adapted to this situation.  Donald Trump has been leading the GOP field because he's a big-mouthed asshole to all the right people....and, oh yeah, he wants the presidency too much.  Clearly Dr. Carson doesn't want it enough.  But that may well also be part of his appeal - the "reluctant leader" is that much less likely to become enamored of power and will be correspondingly less likely to abuse it.

But first he's got to get there.  And book tours kinda get in the way of that.

Dontcha think, Doc?