Top Ben Carson staffers resign in campaign shake-up

WASHINGTON – Ben Carson, the former neurosurgeon whose Republican campaign for president has fallen from the first tier, has parted ways with his campaign manager and communications director after a decline in the polls and a week of confusion about who would remain on his team.

“Barry Bennett and I have resigned from the Carson campaign effective immediately,” said departed communications director Doug Watts in a statement to The Washington Post. “We respect the candidate and we have enjoyed helping him go from far back in the field to top tier status.”

Driving the sudden departures were long-simmering tensions between Bennett and Armstrong Williams, Carson’s confidant and business adviser. Bennett, a veteran GOP operative, wanted the campaign to be more traditional in its setup, fundraising, and messaging while Williams felt Bennett’s approach did not bring out Carson’s strengths. It was a classic divide between the candidate’s friends and professional aides, with each side believing it was working in Carson’s best interests.

The breaking point came two days before Christmas when Williams and Carson decided together to invite The Washington Post and The Associated Press to Carson’s Maryland mansion to talk about a staff shake-up-without Bennett’s knowledge. Bennett felt burned by Carson and that Williams was taking control of the campaign even though he was not formally part of it.

“I spent the holidays hearing every day that I had lost my job,” Bennett said in an interview Thursday. “My relationship with Carson was always good and friendly but being campaign manager in that kind of situation, where outside advisers are in essence driving the campaign and setting up interviews and raising questions about everything, it’s not the right atmosphere.”

Bennett informed Carson about his decision Thursday morning in a phone call. They have not seen each other in person since before the holidays in mid-December. Carson called Bennett from his home in West Palm Beach to get an update on fundraising and the campaign.

“It started out like we always start out, ‘Good morning, how are you? How are things?’ Then I said, pretty simply, that I was resigning. He was very surprised. He said, ‘Can you think about it? Can you wait until the end of the day, think it over?’ I just said, ‘No. I’m sorry. I’m done.’ My point was, you can’t put the genie back in the bottle.”

On Williams urging Carson to talk to reporters about campaign unrest, Bennett called it a “stupid move.” He said it was “absolutely correct” to describe his frustrations with Williams and the comments Carson made to The Post especially about disagreeing with Bennett’s advice as having driven his decision.

“I expect lots of other people will resign today as well,” Bennett added. “The divide between the outside and inside is too deep. There is nothing we could change structurally at this point to make it better. It is what it is, Dr. Carson is who he is. I have so much respect for him but he wants to do things in a way that I don’t, so it’s best that I step down. I’m sure they’ll figure it out.”

Several operatives in early voting states, and Iowa in particular, have charged that the campaign has relied too heavily on organic support and online fundraising without making sufficient attempts to organize that energy in a more tangible way. Others accused the campaign of misusing its funds, reinvesting the bulk of its earnings into raising more money, chartered flights and into bloated campaign salaries instead of building the sort of robust infrastructure in early voting states that will be crucial for whomever locks down the nomination.

Reached at his northern Virginia office on Thursday, Williams said he heard about the shake-up on Twitter, not from Carson himself. He declined to comment on how money had been spent, and said he would refrain from further judgment on how Bennett and Watts performed.

“There’s enough pain today, enough feelings that have been damaged in some ways,” said Williams. “I’m already being blamed, as I knew I would be, but I would never criticize Barry and Doug. They did a lot of good for the campaign with social media. I know they will criticize me, but this is a different season, and we wish them well.”

According to Williams, Carson had reached his staffing decision by the time he invited reporters to his home. When the campaign followed the interviews with a confusing statement about the “100 percent confidence” Carson had in his team, Williams wrote it off as spin.

“If Dr. Carson said there would be a shake-up, he’d already weighed the consequences for the coming primaries,” said Williams. “His actions today, a week later, tell us what that statement meant. It didn’t mean much.”

Bennett said he hasn’t ruled out jumping onto another campaign but he first wants to rest. “Sleep. Sleep. That’s what I’m going to do. I’m very tired. “The internal [expletive] became what the campaign was about. It was sad. Petty. It became mind numbing to me. Having worked so hard on building up the fundraising operation and getting millions behind Dr. Carson so he’d be ready for 2016, I got pulled into this [expletive]. It’s not why I got in this business.

The holiday shake-up also overwhelmed what might have been a good day of news for Carson. Watts’ final act was to announce that Carson had raised more than $23 million for the fourth fundraising quarter of the year, ending 2015 with more than 600,000 unique donors and at least one million individual contributions.

But no one in the Carson network, inside or outside the campaign, could argue with the declining poll numbers. Williams suggested that the primary’s late focus on terrorism and national security, issues where Carson trailed some Republican rivals, had hurt him.

“Listen, the world changed after Paris and San Bernardino,” said Williams. “Dr. Carson has changed too. I must tell you, I’ve never known him to be more at peace. He’s at peace more than you can imagine. And when he’s at peace, I’m ecstatic.”