THE VILLAGES, FLORIDA — A gasp rippled through the aisles of the bookstore as hundreds of mainly older, white women waiting to see Dr. Ben Carson realized the neurosurgeon, author, and presidential candidate was in the building. “I can see him,” squealed a white-haired woman, clutching a stack of books to her chest and straining on her tiptoes as those around her cheered. Another breathlessly told ThinkProgress, “We waited here for hours, no chairs, no nothing. But we endured because we wanted to see him.”
Carson’s campaign was officially suspended this week, as he crisscrossed the Sunshine State selling and signing copies of his new book: A More Perfect Union. But the national book tour, which also traversed Texas, Tennessee and other states, carved out the most time for Florida, a vote-rich swing state. The stops at Costcos and Barnes and Nobles in the wealthier suburbs of Orlando, Tampa, Naples, Miami, and Boca Raton had the aura of campaign rallies. They also drew far bigger crowds than an actual presidential campaign rally the same week held by former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, who trails Carson in the state that made his career.
Though by law no one from his campaign staff could be present on the book tour, half a dozen people from the super PAC “Run, Ben, Run” set up a tent outside each event to gather contact information from the hoards of enthusiastic supporters.
During a break between book signings in Orlando, Carson mused on his success with voters — who rank him ahead of former frontrunner Donald Trump as of this week and rank him more favorably than any other candidate in the race: “I think people are looking for some truth, some honesty and integrity, and it’s something I hopefully offer them,” he told reporters.
Whether voters’ views on his “honesty and integrity” will change following questions this week about whether he fabricated key parts of his life story — being offered a scholarship to the West Point military academy and the story of an attempted stabbing of a friend, who he now says is a “close relative” — remains to be seen.
At each book store on the Florida tour, Carson was greeted like a rock star. Some screamed when they saw him walk in. One woman burst into tears after shaking his hand. An elderly woman, when it was her turn in line, stood up out of her wheelchair and caressed Carson’s face. Another woman got down on one knee and started loudly serenading him, until his private security guards hustled her along. Dozens clutched his hand and told him, “God bless you,” or “We’re praying for you.” Chants of, “President Carson” erupted again and again.
Through it all, as he signed thousands of books a day, posed for pictures, and shook hand after hand, Carson maintained his typical calm smile. Even when taking questions from the press, which he did at each stop on the tour, he seemed to be genuinely enjoying himself. He joked that the Secret Service protection he will soon have will help keep pesky reporters away from him. He serenely stuck by his decades-old belief that the Egypt’s pyramids were built to store grain, not to honor Pharoahs. He shrugged off questions he couldn’t answer, telling reporters: “There are a lot of policies that I lack knowledge on.”
As his opponents scramble to brand themselves as both political outsiders and self-made individuals — even those that come from wealthy, politically powerful families — Carson comes across as effortlessly both.
“I’m not a politician,” he said at his book signing. “I don’t sit around and strategize what to do next. I just be myself. It’s real easy. And if I become president, you’ll see I won’t age as fast as everybody else does, because they’ve always got their finger up in the air trying to figure out what they’re supposed to do. I’ll just do what’s right.”
When cable TV reporters tried repeatedly to goad him into attacking Donald Trump, who recently questioned whether he has the experience to be president, Carson replied that many types of experience have value, and that he has handled more life-and-death situations as a doctor than any of his opponents.
Many Florida voters see Carson’s lack of time in any political office as far more of a pro than a con.
“It’s definitely a good thing,” Nancy Fauser told ThinkProgress. “You don’t want to get caught up in the political arena. To heck with the politics. So I like that he’s not a lawyer and he’s not a politician. I think our country has gone down the wrong path and he’s the only one who can bring us back.”
Some of Carson’s most fervent supports care so much about his outsider identity that they do not want him to win the election.
“I like him and love him, but I don’t want him to be president,” said Tampa resident Fannie Wynn, who self-identified as a conservative and a Christian. “I don’t want him to get wrapped up in the problems of the world. But I think he’d make a great surgeon general.”
I think he’s God’s spokesman for this time.
Wynn says became a fan of Carson’s decades ago, when he first became a traveling inspirational speaker. “My neighbor told me she was going to the University of Southern Florida to hear Dr. Carson, and I said, ‘Who is that?’ She said I should bring all my kids to hear him. And he was phenomenal. I think he’s God’s spokesman for this time.”
Wynn, a retired mother of five, admires how Carson grew up in poverty, raised by an illiterate single mother who pushed him to excel in school. Quoting a line from the Shakespeare comedy Twelfth Night that’s often read as a sexual innuendo, she said: “Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and sometimes greatness is thrust upon us. He’s all three.”
Pieces of that rags-to-riches narrative are now being called into question by reporters unable to verify some of Carson’s biographical claims. But Fauser, who cited her top issues as the budget, Christian values, and “the terrorists,” brushed off these concerns.
“I don’t think we can trust what we hear in the media,” she said.