Carson, the only African-American in the race, spoke in front of hundreds of people at Detroit Music Hall, a few miles from a high school that bears his name. A choir singing the chorus from Eminem's ``Lose Yourself'' set the stage.
He told supporters that he's not anti-government but believes Washington has exceeded its constitutional powers.
In a speech to a crowd that his campaign estimated at thousands, the retired neurosurgeon and unlikely conservative star introduced his wife and family and called for “the people to rise up and take the government back.” Carson told the story of his rise from poverty, where he lived in homes infested with roaches “in the more upscale areas, they called ‘em waterbugs, but we knew what they were” he joked and promised that he wouldn’t change his signature style, framing himself as an outsider up against the political elite.
“I’m probably never going to be politically correct because I’m not a politician,” he said. “I don’t want to be a politician. Because politicians do what is politically expedient I want to do what’s right.”The former head of pediatric neurosurgery at Johns Hopkins hospital has never run for public office. But he's a star among some conservatives and will try to parlay his success as an author and speaker into a competitive campaign.He told his rally: ``I'm Ben Carson and I'm a candidate for president.''Carson earned national acclaim during his 29 years leading the pediatric neurosurgery unit of Johns Hopkins Children's Center in Baltimore, where he still lives. He directed the first surgery to separate twins connected at the back of the head. His career was notable enough to inspire the 2009 movie, ``Gifted Hands,'' with actor Cuba Gooding Jr. depicting Carson.
Carson is now known as a culture warrior whose criticisms of President Obama have made him a favourite of conservatives often to the point of getting himself in trouble with his borderline incendiary comments, including times he’s compared Obamacare to slavery and the U.S. to Nazi Germany.
That unapologetic bluntness has made Carson a conservative star. He typically polls in the middle of the GOP presidential pack, ahead of second-timers like Rick Santorum and Rick Perry, and came in fourth at this year’s Conservative Political Action Conference.
But it’s also the thing that could halt his rise in its tracks. He faces strong skepticism from the GOP establishment over his penchant for controversial comments, which many Republicans worry could create headaches for the whole party and jeopardize their chances in the general election. He told WKRC, however, that he’s learned his lesson from those controversies. “I don’t wander off into those extraneous areas that can be exploited. I have learned that,” he said.
Carson demanded another ‘wave election’ this cycle, not of Republicans (who already control both chambers of Congress), but rather to elect “people with common sense who actually love our nation, and are willing to work for our nation, and are more concerned about the next generation than the next election.” He called for an end to social programs that ‘create dependency,’ and, signaling he may seek to play in Capitol Hill battles, telling supporters that if their lawmaker voted to raise the debt limit, “you need to throw them out of office.”And he also weighed in on the recent unrest in Baltimore, following the death of an African American man in police custody, declaring that the “real issue is that people are losing hope” because the economy isn’t delivering for them. “They don’t feel that life is going to be good for them, no matter what happens, so when an opportunity comes to loot, to riot, to get mine, they take it, not believing that there is a much better way to get the things that they desire,” Carson said.
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