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Ted Cruz's carefully crafted plan to become the right-wing standard-bearer in the Republican presidential race is pretty much on schedule. His campaign has more cash than any rival's, is backed by a well-heeled super PAC and is gaining in the polls. The Bloomberg/Des Moines Register poll has him in third place in Iowa, where caucuses on Feb. 1 will give voters their first chance to cast ballots. For the Texas senator then, it's so far, so good. But now Cruz has a new problem: the neurosurgeon and political novice Ben Carson. The big news of the Bloomberg/Des Moines Register survey...

Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump dismissed polls that show him trailing Dr. Ben Carson in Iowa, calling the retired neurosurgeon "super low-energy" before a boisterous crowd in Miami on Friday night. In Florida polls, Trump remains far ahead of Bush, the state's former two-term governor, and Rubio, the state's junior senator since 2011. A University of North Florida poll of likely Republican primary voters out this week found Trump with the support of 22 percent. Carson, who also lives in the state, had 19 percent. Rubio was third with 15 percent and Bush fourth with 9 percent. Trump is hoping...

Morton Klein of the Zionist Organization of America is calling on presidential candidate Ben Carson to sever ties with his longtime confidante, business manager and top outside campaign adviser, Armstrong Williams. On October 5 Williams penned a barely-noticed article for The Hill titled "The Nation of Islam Could Be Chicago's savior.” On October 19, Townhall reprinted the same piece but this time with a different title: "To Curb Chiraq Violence, Bring in the NOI." Williams calls on his readers to distinguish between “moderate” NOI-ers and the more virulent “extremists,’ spouting “inflammatory rhetoric” like Farrakhan. According to Williams, the organization’s partnership...

Republicans are consistently attacked whenever they mention reforms to entrenched entitlement programs like Social Security and Medicare. But presidential candidate Dr. Ben Carson is going boldly where no Republican has gone before: declaring he would abolish Medicare completely. As Politico reports, “Carson … would eliminate the program that provides health care to 49 million senior citizens, as well as Medicaid, and replace it with a system of cradle-to-grave savings accounts which would be funded with $2,000 a year in government contributions. When pressed on his position in May by CNBC’s John Harwood, Carson said Americans would support the elimination of...

WASHINGTON–Sen. Ted Cruz is picking up steam in Iowa, according to a new Bloomberg/Des Moines Register poll.Cruz ranked third among likely Republican caucus-goers with 10 percent picking him over the rest of the field. He trails Ben Carson with 28 percent and Donald Trump with 19 percent, while Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida is close behind with 9 percent.Cruz’s emphasis on Evangelical voters makes success Iowa critical for his presidential campaign....Cruz is in Iowa this weekend hosting meet-and-greets and speaking at a county GOP convention today. Two more events scheduled for Saturday. Last week Cruz took a three-day, 13-stop campaign...

Hard on the heels of yesterday’s Quinnipiac poll comes a survey from the Des Moines Register that confirms Ben Carson is now the leading Republican candidate in Iowa, with Donald Trump slipping into second place, and Senator Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) 96% nudging ahead of Senator Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) 80% for third. The Des Moines Register’s results are very similar to Quinnipiac: Carson 28, Trump 19, Cruz 10, Rubio 9. That’s a 10 point jump for Carson since the last poll in August, and a four-point slide for Trump. The second tier is a tie for fifth place, with...

Republicans have fended off accusations for years that they'd gut Medicare for seniors and end the program "as we know it." Not Ben Carson. The former neurosurgeon acknowledges he would abolish the program altogether. Carson, who now leads the GOP field in Iowa according to the latest Quinnipiac Poll, would eliminate the program that provides health care to 49 million senior citizens, as well as Medicaid, and replace it with a system of cradle-to-grave savings accounts which would be funded with $2,000 a year in government contributions. While rivals have been pummeled for proposing less radical changes, Carson hasn't faced...

During a radio interview yesterday, Carson suggested that Hillary Clinton will not be the Democratic nominee because she’ll be in jail. Ben Carson has predicted many things in his day. He has claimed that End Times were nigh. He has said that a new Hitler could rise. And yesterday, he said that Hillary Clinton will end up behind bars for her actions as Secretary of State. “Hillary can well be in jail and it’s hard to run from there,” Carson said bemusedly during an interview on “The John Gibson Show.” He claimed that Joe Biden would be the Democratic nominee...

With a big boost from women, Dr. Ben Carson leads Donald Trump 28 - 20 percent among Iowa likely Republican Caucus participants, with 13 percent for Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida and 10 percent for Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas, according to a Quinnipiac University poll released today. This compares to the results of a September 11 survey by the independent Quinnipiac (KWIN-uh-pe-ack) University showing Trump at 27 percent with Carson at 21 percent. Today, Sen. Rand Paul is at 6 percent, with Carly Fiorina and former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush at 5 percent each. No other candidate tops 3...

In a first for Ben Carson's Republican presidential campaign, a survey released Wednesday showed the retired pediatric neurosurgeon edging Donald Trump in Wisconsin — and that the billionaire developer is tied for second place with Florida Sen. Marco Rubio. Here are the results of the survey by Wisconsin Public Radio: Carson: 20 percent. Trump and Rubio: 18 percent. Ted Cruz: 10 percent. Carly Fiorina: 8 percent. Jeb Bush, Mike Huckabee and John Kasich: 3 percent. Rand Paul and Rick Santorum: 2 percent. Chris Christie: 1 percent. All remaining candidates, zero percent. In a hypothetical contest against Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton,...

Actually, the headline of the poll doesn't mention Trump's 47.4 number. You have to go to the poll results to see it, but the Hill, which reported the story, did: http://thehill.com/blogs/ballot-box/presidential-races/257568-poll-trump-dominates-gops-2016-race-in-mass

Ben Carson has knocked Donald Trump from his perch atop the field in Iowa, according to the latest Quinnipiac University poll of Iowa Republicans. Carson has opened up an 8 percentage point lead over Trump with the help of women and white evangelicals, who overwhelmingly favor the soft-spoken former neurosurgeon over the outspoken billionaire. About 28% of likely caucusgoers said they support Carson, 20% back Trump, 13% support Florida Sen. Marco Rubio and 10% are for Texas Sen. Ted Cruz. The survey is the first major poll to find Trump trailing by a significant margin nationally or in the four...

"Sharpton and I Have the Same Goal," Says Ben Carson, "Just Different Ideas on How to Get There." Ben Carson's April, 2015, article in National Review state: Last week, I had the pleasure of speaking at the National Action Network's (NAN) 17th annual national convention in New York City. NAN is one of the leading civil-rights organizations in the United States. It was founded in 1991 by the Reverend Al Sharpton to "promote a modern civil rights agenda that includes the fight for one standard of justice, decency and equal opportunities for all people regardless of race, religion, nationality or...

Placing Principles before PersonalitiesEvery time in this century we've lowered the tax rates across the board, on employment, on saving, investment and risk-taking in this economy, revenues went up, not down. ~ Jack Kemp:: By: Larry Walker, II ::Dr. Ben Carson doesn’t really have a tax plan at all, yet he’s number 2 in the polls among conservative Republicans. On the other hand, Donald Trump has a very detailed tax reduction plan. In a nutshell, Trump’s plan eliminates taxes on individuals making less than $25,000 and on couples making less than $50,000, lowers the top marginal rate to 25%, just...

I like Dr Ben Carson. I respect Ben Carson. I admire what he made of himself and how he's seemed to have lived his life. I agree with almost everything that comes out of his mouth. But what can this man possibly offer as a leader that we wouldn't simply get more-and-better of from Ted Cruz? Ben Carson is a good man, and it's difficult to 'attack' him on any specific major issue- he's said some dumb things about guns before, but generally there's not much daylight between our views. Alas, after enduring the utterly-unqualified Obama wreck the country, how is...

Take rapidly rising retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson, a Seventh-day Adventist who revealed how he quieted his rage and found God as a teenager after reading the Book of Proverbs while locked in a bathroom for three hours. He speaks about personal work ethic and individual responsibility as keys to a successful spiritual and material life, rhetoric that resonates with Republican voters — in a recent NBC News national online poll, white evangelical support for Carson jumped from 20 to 33 percent. “When you get into how Carson fuses his politics with his faith, it more clearly relates to the white...

Businessman Donald Trump continues to maintain his hold atop the contest for the Republican presidential nomination, with retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson keeping a clear grip on second place and the rest of the large field scrambling to find a foothold, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll. Trump’s support has held steady over the past month; 32 percent of Republican and GOP-leaning voters currently back him compared with 33 percent in early September. The numbers suggest that mixed reviews of his performance in the second Republican debate in California did little to dampen the enthusiasm of his supporters. Carson,...

"Sharpton and I Have the Same Goal," Says Ben Carson, "Just Different Ideas on How to Get There." Ben Carson's April, 2015, article in National Review state: Last week, I had the pleasure of speaking at the National Action Network's (NAN) 17th annual national convention in New York City. NAN is one of the leading civil-rights organizations in the United States. It was founded in 1991 by the Reverend Al Sharpton to "promote a modern civil rights agenda that includes the fight for one standard of justice, decency and equal opportunities for all people regardless of race, religion, nationality or...

GOP Nomination Possible Republican presidential candidates in 2016

Washington (CNN). Donald Trump and Ben Carson now stand alone at the top of the Republican field, as Carly Fiorina's brief foray into the top tier of candidates seeking the GOP nomination for president appears to have ended, a new