STORM LAKE, Iowa -- Since rising to the top of the GOP presidential field, Ben Carson has fumbled on foreign policy, lashed out publicly at scrutiny of his life story and has had to referee a tug of war among his closest advisers -- all while watching his rivals capitalize on his troubles.
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But Carson's campaign insists that he is still poised to win in first-to-vote Iowa, where Carson plans to concentrate his campaign until the Feb. 1 caucus.
The effort comes as questions linger about his overall readiness for the job. His aides acknowledge that national front-runner Donald Trump and Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas, who some polls show as the new leader in Iowa, have commandeered the spotlight in a Republican race whose focus has shifted to national security after mass attacks in the U.S. and abroad.
The candidate remains unwavering.
"It doesn't matter; all I have to do is tell the truth," Carson said Friday -- day two of a weeklong swing through Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina, the first three states voting for a would-be nominee.
Campaign manager Barry Bennett said Carson maintains a broad appeal and has teams mobilizing on his behalf in Iowa and South Carolina, states where evangelical and anti-establishment conservatives are in excess. That, Bennett said, guarantees Carson will perform well enough in February balloting to be strong heading into March, when more than half the delegates required to win the nomination will be at stake.
Bennett said Carson's Iowa staff still has 35,000 firm commitments from Republicans who say they will attend caucuses on his behalf. If Carson actually attracts that much support on Feb. 1, he'd almost certainly finish at or near the top: Mike Huckabee drew 40,000 caucus attendees to win the state in 2008; Rick Santorum needed just less than 30,000 to nip Mitt Romney four years later.
"We've been working on our data for six months or so," Bennett said. "We know who they are. I feel good about Iowa. I feel good about South Carolina."
Reflecting where the campaign believes Carson's advantage rests, Bennett said the effort in both states will focus heavily on churches and their members who consider themselves evangelical voters. Yet some of the same candidates outflanking Carson on foreign policy also have strength among evangelicals, whose support the doctor is banking on. Cruz has endorsements from Iowa power broker Bob Vander Plaats, who backed caucus winner Santorum in 2012, and the influential Focus on the Family founder James Dobson, among others.
When asked about Carson claims of 35,000 committed Iowa supporters, Cruz spokesman Catherine Frazier said, "I have no response to that" and walked away.
Carson isn't completely ceding the foreign-policy front. He often reassures backers he will surround himself with able advisers, while quipping that his opponents -- senators, governors and nonelected officials -- also lack practical experience on the world stage.
After drawing criticism for suggesting China was militarily engaged in Syria's civil war, Carson began peppering many of his campaign speeches with details on world affairs. At several recent campaign stops, he spent several minutes on the tactical details of how coalition forces could retake the city of Raqqa, Syria, the Islamic State's declared capital.
Yet Carson and his aides contend the new foreign-policy dynamics of the GOP race are temporary.
"That's what we're seeing now with all the candidates raising their voices and talking tough," Bennett continued. "But that fades pretty fast, and then it becomes about who has the best ideas."
In Iowa last week, Carson reverted to the heart of his strategy which pegs him as a political outsider, pitching his poverty-to-fame autobiography, Christian faith and indictment of conventional politics, and he largely steered clear of national security and foreign policy. He bemoaned the national debt, offered ideas for replacing the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act and touched only briefly on the debate over immigration and Muslims that has gripped the Republican Party.
"Hopefully the American people will come to recognize that strength is not defined by the volume with which one says something," Carson said in an online video last week.
His Iowa supporters agree. Erik Mosbo, 58, of Rembrandt, Iowa, said he hopes Trump "will say something and ... explode" so Carson "can calmly fill the void."
A Section on 12/23/2015