Ben Carson’s presidential bid appears to be on the fast track to Nowheresville, but he was still able to attract a crowd Tea Party hotbed Tarrant County on Sunday. The most surprising aspect of the overflow event, was the hostility of attendees towards Sen. Ted Cruz (TP-Texas). The Texas Tribune has the skinny on the increasing disillusionment with Cruz in his “home state.”
[O]ver and over in conversations, members of this racially diverse, mostly evangelical crowd expressed revulsion toward the other GOP candidates, including home state U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz.
Cathy Singleton, a Frisco flight attendant, has admired Carson since she heard him speak at an event in Branson, Missouri.
“I think he has a big shot. We were discussing it earlier today,” she said gesturing to her husband, James. “So far, he is the only candidate we haven’t caught in a lie. I don’t like to vote for people that have lied consistently. He’s an honest campaigner.”
Singleton confirmed her comments alluded to Cruz’s recent campaign turbulence: accusations that his campaign deceived Iowa Republicans into believing Carson was dropping out of the race there, and charges that a Cruz staffer shared an online video that falsely purported to show U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida making a negative comment about the Bible.
“Before that, I was looking at some of the other candidates thinking, ‘Yeah, well, you know, maybe’,” she said. “But if someone’s going play that dirty with someone in their own party, they’re going to do that to anyone.”
The Carson supporters who gathered Saturday showed no bias for the Texas candidate. The overriding sentiment expressed was disillusionment.
Carolyn Nelson is a retired educator and real estate agent from Irving. She said she voted early for Carson because he serves as a positive contrast to the “bullish stupid activities that’s going on with the other candidates.”
“I have no anger toward him,” she said of Cruz. “But I have no trust in him at all. He makes me nervous. I think he is dishonest. I thought he was dishonest before Trump called him a liar. I just would not vote for him.”
Linton Davis is an operations manager at Lockheed Martin’s Fort Worth plant. He called Cruz “a politician,” as if the term was an ad hominem attack.
“The thing that makes Ted a politician is… not what he says, but the way he says it and the things he will do,” he said. “He plays dirty pool… There’s a sense with Ted that it’s an ends-justifies-the-means type attitude.”
Paradise in Hell 
