Posted on 02/20/2016 11:24:11 PM PST by BlackFemaleArmyColonel
Sen. Ted Cruz and Ben Carson reportedly met privately in a storage closet Thursday night in Greenville to try and cool relations between the two campaigns ahead of the primary here. But the clandestine meeting allegedly did not go well.
Cruz called the meeting, The Daily Beast reports, to smooth over what has been a contentious public spat with the Carson campaign ever since the Iowa caucus. Carson accused Cruz of using dirty campaign tactics after one of Cruz's staffers saw a CNN report and told voters Carson was dropping out of the race right before voting started in Iowa.
The meeting, which the Carson campaign confirmed to The Beast, took place prior to the Conservative Review convention and lasted nearly 25 minutes despite Carson only agreeing to five minutes, a source said. It took so long Carson was late to his speaking arrangement during the convention.
"We weren't going to comment to the press on it, but it seems pretty clear that the other party involved had a different agenda," Jason Osborne, a spokesperson for Carson's campaign told The Beast. "How else could we perceive that to be?"
Osborne said that "the meeting did not go well" and was on short notice, so he didn't have time to prepare Carson.
The former neurosurgeon reportedly told Cruz "we agree to disagree." As Carson put it, "we disagree on accountability and culpability," according to Osborne.
The meeting apparently had no chairs and it's even unclear if the lights were on in the closet as Secret Service waited outside.
After speaking to the convention, Carson crossed paths with Cruz in a hallway, and the Texas senator reportedly didn't even look at Carson, his campaign said.
(Excerpt) Read more at dailycaller.com ...
I know everybody keeps on picking on poor Ted... they just will not let him win.
Carson doesn’t seem to believe your version of this event.
He is determined to make Cruz pay. He won’t leave this race.
There’s no certainty that Carson’s supporters would go to Cruz, but my guess would be one other the other outsider candidates: Cruz or Trump.
There’s bad blood there butterdezillion. I think Carson BELIEVES Cruz did him dirty. Perhaps you are right, but someone has convinced Carson otherwise.
Oh, they had the balls to just come out and lie. The first media report - and the source for all later reports - was The Daily BEast report, and it acknowledges that the CArson campaign was their source. It claims that other reporters were told about it before them - calling the Carson campaign for a story while the meeting was still going on, but if so not one of them wrote or said a word about it so the Carson campaign had nothing to bellyache about. If they hadn’t squealed to The Daily Beast nothing would have come out in the media.
I agree, they are really blowing this thing way out of proportion.
I can’t understand, a minor miscommunication which Carson is at least 50% responsible for can’t forgive and let it go.
At this point I see him staying in the race out of spite toward Cruz. He has zero chance and needs to drop out now.
Mighty Christian of ya Ben.
South Carolina is in many ways a microcosm of the USA. It demonstrates that Cruz has no pathway to victory.
After Super Tuesday, barring an event to cause the scales to fall away from people's eyes, it will be Donald Trump, yes or no.
A few may understand the significance of that choice, but I suspect it will be lost on most.
To break the ice, I just read this on BI, “fat chicks dont vote because they have to go out in public. Hillary loses.”
Agreed! I wonder why none of the other campaigns “misunderstood”? There is only one answer to that question.
Cruz still wants Carson’s voters and thats why he insisted on the meeting in the closet. Carson is driving a hard bargain and wants someone’s head in exchange for his forgiveness.
I believe Carson is mad because the day or 2 before the IA caucus he told his NH campaign workers that he was going to quit that week, they left his campaign on Sunday to join Cruz’s campaign and told Cruz’s team that Carson was going to quit that week, and when the CNN report came out before the caucus had even started everybody assumed he was going to quit because he wasn’t going to NH or SC and it robbed him of his chance to find out how much support he really had and to have his public announcement and bow out graciously.
So he falsely claimed that he WAS going to campaign, and blamed Cruz for passing on CNN’s report of what his own people had said.
He’s acting in a spiteful, untruthful way, and I no longer feel sorry for him.
Lately, I have been getting that impression as well.
It’s a fantastic movie made around 1962 starring Henry Fonda, Charles Laughton. Directed by Otto Preminger. One of the very best political movies I’ve ever seen.
And sadly, it shows Washington as the lovely old southern town it once was instead of the greedy, corrupt metropolis it has become. In the movie, senators took the bus to work. And they did, too!
plus didn’t he unload a lot more staff or they quit before the Iowa caucus?
Froth at the keyboard much? Associative smearing of a candidate? Really?
(Considering what there was to choose from compared to Nixon at the time, your inner New Left Hippie is showing.)
Carson supporters would be crazy to go to Cruz. And I don’t think they’re crazy.
I think it’s funny marco gave a victory speech last night.
I’m a Cruzer but a 10% loss is big.
Oh no, that popping sound In my brain what is .going on?
God bless Carson. He’s doing gods work. Keeping Cruz out of contention of president is good.
He got 45K in SC. God bless Carson!
Fake but accurate is the new tactic. All the 'evils' of Ted Cruz will be as well known as Sarah Palin's statement that she 'can see Russia from my house'. (Even though that was Tina Fey, not Sarah, 'everyone' will 'know' it was the other way around).
We used to peel the BS off of stuff like this until there was nothing left and throw it out with the nightsoil.
Apparently that doesn't happen around here as a matter of routine any more.
Cool with me. Karma for Cruz.
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