When you hear this kind of news about a candidate, it generally means they are on their way out the race. It’s just a matter of time:
WASHINGTON POST – Ben Carson, the famed neurosurgeon whose bid for the Republican presidential nomination has struggled to keep pace with rivals, will cut more than 50 staff positions on Thursday as part of an overhaul and downsizing of his entire campaign.
Salaries are being significantly reduced. Carson’s traveling entourage will shrink to only a handful of advisers. And instead of flying on private jets, Carson may soon return to flying on commercial flights.
The employees being released – about half of Carson’s campaign — mostly work in field operations and at his headquarters in Northern Virginia.
Campaign officials, who confirmed the moves after The Washington Post obtained an internal memo about the layoffs, stressed that key aides in upcoming GOP primary contests will remain in place and that Carson is determined to stay in the 2016 race.
But they acknowledged that Carson’s funds have diminished as he has fallen from the top tier, forcing him to make sweeping changes to a campaign that swelled into a bustling operation of about 125 people.
Longtime Carson confidant Armstrong Williams said the drastic shake-up has been under consideration for weeks but was postponed until after Monday’s Iowa caucuses, where Carson finished in fourth place with 9.3 percent of the vote.
So they knew this before Iowa but waited until after the vote to actually downsize. It makes sense they’d do that as they want to give themselves the best chance to win and news like this would certainly hurt him. After all Carson was leading in Iowa last year and it was probably his best chance to put his stake in the ground and continue marching toward the nomination.
But since that didn’t happen, his fundraising is going to continue to dry up. He’s already announced that he isn’t really going to contend for New Hampshire and who knows if he’s seriously going to contend for South Carolina.
The writing is on the wall for the Carson campaign. I just wonder when he exits the race, will he blame it on ‘dirty tricks’ committed by Cruz?