We’re two years away from the next election for President of the United States, but the race is already heating up.
Among the contenders: Dr. Ben Carson, who gave it good to President Obama at last year’s National Prayer Breakfast — and who had more digs for the commander in chief last Wednesday at the Women’s National Republican Club on West 51st Street.
“People say to me, ‘Dr. Carson, you’d make a great president, but Obama has ruined it for another black candidate.’ I say, ‘He’s half-white, so I guess he ruined it for them, too.’ ”
Carson, who retired as director of pediatric neurosurgery at John Hopkins Hospital, gave a speech, answered questions from a crowd of about 300 and signed copies of his sixth book, “One Nation: What We Can All Do To Save America’s Future.”
Carson has started a PAC, “USA First,” to fund a campaign and says, “I’ve decided to delay my retirement and work very hard to save our nation.”
But back to his zingers:
“A PBS reporter asked me, ‘How come you don’t talk more about race?’ I said, ‘Because I’m a neurosurgeon. When I open up a patient’s skull, I’m working on what makes him or her a human being — not his skin. ’”
Dr. Carson said he met Rev. Al Sharpton at the White House Correspondents dinner. “Sharpton agreed it was time to start a conversation, but then his people must have gotten to him,” Carson said.
By freezing him out, Sharpton was simply following one of the lessons of community organizer Saul Alinsky, Carson said: “You don’t talk to your adversaries — that humanizes them. What you want to do is demonize them.”
Carson also had quips on several other subjects, including legalizing marijuana (“Data show it reduces IQ. We have enough stupid people. We don’t need to create more of them.”) and unions (“They will strangle the goose that lays the golden egg for that last egg.”).
The partisan crowd was hanging on every word, and urging Carson to run for president.