Who Is Ben Carson? And Does He Have A Chance?

Who is Ben Carson? And does he have a chance? These are just a couple of questions echoing among voters following the first Republican debate. It’s common knowledge that Carson is a celebrated neurosurgeon-turned-politician, but it still has GOP supporters wondering how he made it into the top 10 for republican candidates for the upcoming 2016 election, and he’s not on the bottom of the 10, either. He has the fifth popular vote from the GOP party, according to the most recent poll.

The four candidates ahead of Carson all have a history. Trump is a celebrity, Bush comes from a presidential family, Walker is a popular Wisconsin governor, and Huckabee was the governor of Arkansas and candidate for the 2008 Republican presidential primaries.

But just who is Ben Carson? In the debate, Carson identified himself as the following.

“The only one to separate Siamese twins, The only one to operate on babies while they were still in the mother’s womb, and the only one to take out half of a brain. Though, you’d think that if you’ve gone to Washington, someone had beaten me to it.”

His medical background is as clear as his sense of humor. He also recently shared his life story at a church service in Iowa. He expressed how he and his family had grown up extremely poor in Detroit and how he had been quite the rebel as a teenager. He had anger issues, and faced a number of conflicts in school.

He shared how he witnessed countless murders on the street in his home town. Seeing that made him realize that he might not make it to his 20s if he didn’t change his ways. So he locked himself in the bathroom for three hours as a teenager, and experienced a change of heart. Poring over the book of Proverbs, he repented of his sins, calmed his anger, and turned toward God.

“When I came out, my temper was gone and I’ve never had a problem since,” he reported.

From there, Carson cleaned up his act, went to college at Yale and the University of Michigan’s Medical School, and became one of the world’s most gifted neurosurgeons.

There was even a TV movie made about his life in 2009 entitled Gifted Hands: The Ben Carson Story starring Cuba Gooding Jr, which emerged shortly after he was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President George W. Bush in 2008.

Upon retiring from an extremely successful career in neurosurgery, Carson turned to politics. He is particularly noted for the role he played in the Tea Party in 2013 when he attacked Obamacare at the National Prayer Breakfast with President Obama present.

His decision to run for president largely came as a response to many of the things he’s seen in big government and disliked. Carson is searching for freedom, as he declared in his closing statement at the first Republican debate.

“I am very hopeful that I am not the only one who is willing to pick up the baton of freedom. Because freedom is not free and we must fight for it every day. Everyone of us must fight for it because we are fighting for our children and the next generation.”

That is exactly who Ben Carson is and why he just might have a shot at being president someday. His passion and connection with the people make him an extremely likable candidate, and his desire to fight for freedom is inspiring.

The biggest thing standing in his way now is his lack of political knowledge, which makes it seem unlikely that he will make president this election. However, this won’t be the last we see of Ben Carson, and if we give him a few years, we may see Carson as the frontrunner for the Republican candidate in the 2020 election. At that point, the question “Who is Ben Carson” will be outdated.

[Image via IBTimes.com]