Tuesday 2 February 2016

Dr Ben Carson and Ted Cruz controversy explained.

So I wanted to try and help clear up the Carson/Cruz controversy.  There is a serious lack of ethics and bias involved in some responses to this incident.

First of all people have to stop saying things that simply make no sense. I have just seen Chris Loesch tweet this outlandish claim

Now ask yourself why on earth the Trump campaign would start a rumor about Ben Carson pulling out? They're the people who'd lose out the most from Carson pulling out before Iowa.

                                                       It doesn't make any sense.

Literally the only source for this claim is a person called Dan Gabriel, who is a big Cruz supporter, and most of his account is full of anti-Trump tweets. Nobody else has accused Trump or his campaign of anything to do with this. Nobody at all. So it seems very likely Dan is lying. Now we know he is lying because someone took a screenshot of something he tweeted a few hours before he tweeted that..


So he has specifically claimed a Ben Carson source CONFIRMED to him that Ben Carson is out and to choose Cruz. He then deleted that tweet & claimed Trump's campaign started the rumor. He's literally the only guy to claim that. So clearly Ben Carson's campaign didn't talk to him, he was lying. He was lying about Trump also. So Chris Loesch shouldn't be spreading such misinformation.

Here is a more detailed screenshot

So, did CNN start the rumor?  Somewhat. Around 20 minutes before caucuses opened they led with a story of Carson leaving Iowa that night to beat the storm and added he'd be staying there several days before going to the national prayer breakfast. 
They made it clear he wasn't dropping out & was still going to campaign, but some people presumed he was dropping out.

The reporter in question who relayed the info to the CNN presenters tried to clear this up on twitter himself after receiving some comments.


Unfortunately his last tweet came a whole hour and 5 minutes after caucuses opened. So someone relayed to CNN/Chris Moody that Carson was going home.  Who & why that came up in the 1st place is unclear.

Now here's where it gets sketchy from Cruz's side. His supporters & backers began to insinuate Carson was out, Carson was pulling out. Cruz sent an email indicating this was a message they should push.



^ Both of these last two messages are twisting the truth. The major announcement next week insinuates he's going on a break then going to announce his campaign is over. However there is no major announcement next week. So that was trickery to really convince people he's dropping out.

The picture before suggests he is stopping campaigning after Iowa. If that is all the information you have, then it seems like he's stopping campaigning altogether, again that is very misleading.

Cruz's campaign were well aware he was 2nd choice with most Carson voters. They do actually have data on this stuff. 

There were then several reports of Cruz campaign members telling people at causes that Carson has pulled out & isn't running, To switch their votes to Cruz.  At one Caucus, Carson's wife had to tell people he's still running. 

Now clearly if Carson was going to pull out, he'd say so & he wouldn't drop the bombshell just before people start voting in Iowa, particularly as he's been very positive in the lead up to Iowa, He said he expected to defy all expectations & also said the only way he wouldn't be in SC is if he died.

Cruz's team would be smart enough to know Carson was not dropping out, nevertheless they clearly put that message out so they'd gain votes, this is unethical, this is cheating actually.  Deliberately telling voters there to vote Carson he is dropping out so they'll vote someone else(probably you) is cheating.


We have to take a step back and realize Ben Carson has raised a lot of money, worked extremely hard, been campaigning for months and months, so to lose a lot of votes and supporters in this shady way, right at the last possible point is extremely unfair on him and to him.

Now we don't know why or who fed CNN this road to go down with Carson. If it was really done in a devious calculated scheme by the Cruz campaign to plant a story & then exploit it knowing full well they'd benefit, we'll never fully know I doubt. But we do know Cruz & his team happily lied and twisted the truth to gain after the information about Carson going home for a few days was out.

Update

Cruz has now admitted a 'whispering campaign' and apologized to Ben Carson.
One thing I didn't mention. The reason I think personally think Ted Cruz campaign had something to do with what CNN released was certain things I noticed throughout the day.

For example...

Ben Shapiro, a huge Cruz pusher retweeted a guy with just 21 tweets(at that time) and he was one of the 1st to retweet him. This was at 1pm Iowa time.  This is what he retweeted...


When I saw that I was baffled. I thought Carson's campaign team has left him? Wow. His campaign has really gone off the rails. That was surprising since Carson had been promising big things in Iowa in the days previous.


Later on Carson was posting pictures from his HQ & it was full. So this was very misleading. Again Nick is anti-Trump, pro Cruz. Though he only has 40 tweets and they're about a whole range of things. I'm not sure who he even is. But certainly Ben Shapiro was quick to retweet this. Again in the last two weeks, Ben Shapiro has been very pro Cruz anti-Trump.

It seems Cruz campaign realized Trump supporters are most loyal & most difficult to get. Rubio was gaining support & he needed to find a boost from somewhere else

1st they threatened to release peoples private info and shame them for not voting, and 2nd they possibly planted a story about Ben Carson leaving & twisted it into him dropping out to gain some Carson votes.

It's all very sketchy/shady behavior. He won by 5,200 votes. It's quite possible he would have won Iowa regardless of these tactics. But I do think playing hard & saying whatever beforehand is one thing, but blatantly cheating in the way they did with Carson was definitely immoral.

He probably cost Carson a delegate.

Glenn Beck recently uploaded a fake tweet from Donald Trump which said ''Congrats to my friend Obama, I always vote for the winners''

Now this was so clearly fake, it was all wrong for what a tweet looks like, Trump at that time was very anti Obama & so on. But Beck knew what he was doing. He put it up there, it'd cause enough people to think twice & half those people wouldn't see the retraction Beck made a week later.

Similar to other fake tweets Cruz supporters have put out about Trump claiming to love abortion at 8 months and all this kind of insane stuff.

I just wonder why people who continually insert God into their words & actions behave in this unethical way?

Glenn Beck knew what he was doing, he knew that was a fake tweet, but he put it up anyway, and left it up for a whole week on two platforms. It was clear deception.

Likewise Ted Cruz'd team knew Ben Carson wasn't dropping out, they know he had a strong Iowa game, they know he worked so hard & was promising to shock people in Iowa. Yet they happily told his supporters he's dropping out and encouraged them to change their vote to Cruz.  It's clear deception.