Ben Carson's toast. Everyone knows it. So let's pick through the scraps of his implosion, shall we? First, there's the villain: Armstrong Williams, Carson's longtime ally and "business manager."
On one side was Williams, a Carson friend for decades who had been the candidate's closest adviser since he launched his presidential bid last May. On the other was spokesman Doug Watts and veteran GOP operative Barry Bennett, the campaign manager who routinely found himself at odds with Williams over messaging and strategy — and often in an embarrassingly public way.
Bennett, Watts and several other senior staffers ultimately left the campaign on New Year's Eve, citing sharp differences with Williams.
Then there was the Nov. 17 interview, arranged by the villain.
Another New York Times story stunned the campaign: an interview with Duane Clarridge, an octogenarian former CIA operative whom Williams described as one of Carson's top foreign policy advisers.
The interview, arranged by Williams, was meant to shore up faith in Carson's foreign policy credentials in the aftermath of the terrorist attacks in Paris and questions about his readiness to be commander in chief. Instead, the story delivered a bombshell from his own adviser's mouth: Carson had been struggling to learn the basics of world affairs.
Then the well ran dry.
"Financial problems for the campaign started on the 20th of November when we hit the cliff," Watts said.
The campaign, which had expected to collect $40 million in the final three months of the year, ended the quarter collecting $23 million — an amount that was largely sapped by expenses. A formidable list-building effort that Bennett said was on track to amass 4 million small donors plateaued at 3 million. Carson's Facebook following, which had surged over the year to surpass 5 million, suddenly slowed as well.
That's the complicated version, courtesy of Doug Watts and Barry Bennett, who obviously have an interest in conveying their version of Carson’s spectacular meltdown. But here are the basics: Carson's a political quack and people were bound to figure that out once he gained the attention of a near front-runner. End of story.