According to WMUR, the local ABC affiliate out of Manchester, NH, every single member of the paid staff within Dr. Ben Carson’s Super PAC in New Hampshire has quit. Each of these five individuals officially signed off from the Super PAC as of the end of the day yesterday.
What is even more surprising, is that they not only left a paying job at the Carson Super PAC, but that they did so to work as volunteers for Senator Ted Cruz’s campaign. It is hard not to believe that these former Super PAC staffers think that Carson’s campaign is dead in the water. There are very few other reasons that someone would leave a paying job for a non-paying volunteer position.
This Super PAC has come under scrutiny during the Carson campaign for its dubious ties to extreme right-wing organizations. In early November, we reported that Carson’s Super PAC was sourcing funds from a known hate group by co-sponsoring one of their conferences. The speakers at this event espoused beliefs which included:
- That the LGBTQ movement is causing “the end of times”
- That “the gays” caused the Holocaust
- That “gay people” caused the Rwandan genocide
- That LGBTQ people are solely responsible for the spread of HIV and AIDS in Africa
WMUR also reported that the spokesperson for the Carson Super PAC, Jerry Sickles, stated that he and the other four staff members “came to the conclusion that Cruz is the conservative most able to win the GOP presidential nomination and the presidency.”
While that statement is debatable, Sickles and his fellow Super PAC staffers also expressed frustration at the fact that Carson has spent a minimal amount of time campaigning in New Hampshire.
That decision by Carson may come back to haunt him, as he has been slowly sliding towards irrelevance as the campaign nears the Iowa caucuses and New Hampshire primaries.
No one can be certain as to what the outcome of these upcoming votes might be, but one can be certain that it is never good news when your paid Super PAC staff quits to volunteer for another candidate.
Featured image via Gage Skidmore, available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial license.
