In Memoriam: The Ben Carson Campaign (2015-2016)

Nuttiest moments from his attempt to take the White House.

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Swan Song - It's official: Ben Carson announced on Friday that he is done running for president, after realizing he did not see a “political path forward” following his poor showing on Super Tuesday. The end of the Carson campaign means saying goodbye to one of the strangest and most improbable bids for the White House we've ever seen — outside of Trump, of course. Carson has given us some truly memorable moments in the past year, and this is a tribute to some of his strangest. (Photo: Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)

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Start With a Whimper - Carson's campaign didn't exactly start with a bang. Unlike seasoned politicians, who know to declare their presidential aspirations to big crowds in front of important-looking buildings, with little else in the news cycle to steal their thunder, Carson announced his bid for the White House during a local news interview in Florida when people didn't know anything about him except that he was a retired surgeon with zero political experience. He later undermined his own campaign by declaring that he "really didn't want to run" for president, but faith and duty called on him to do so. (Photo: Scott Olson/Getty Images)

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Easy Shot - The Republican party absolutely loved it when Carson criticized Barack Obama, our first Black president, but his comparison of President Obama’s Affordable Care Act to slavery — or, as he said, "worse than slavery," left even some staunch conservatives confused. 

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Hamas or Hummus? -  At an event in early December, put on by the Republican Jewish Coalition, Carson's attempt to talk about the terrorist group Hamas put everyone in a snacking mood when he kept accidentally saying "hummus" instead? After that, campaign staffers surely took note to schedule important policy talks for after lunch.(Photo:   Bill Pugliano/Getty Images)

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Who Cares About Science? - Carson is a big fan of the Bible, what he’s not so big a fan of is scientific fact. During an interview, Carson had this to say about the beginning of the Universe: “I mean, it’s even more ridiculous than that ’cause our solar system, not to mention the universe outside of that, is extraordinarily well organized, to the point where we can predict 70 years away when a comet is coming. Now that type of organization to just come out of an explosion? I mean, you want to talk about fairy tales, that is amazing.” Maybe one say someone will explain to him the way light years work.(Photo: Stephen Maturen/Getty Images)

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Roadblock - Carson had a hard time convincing us that he was ready to be the leader of the free world when he had trouble figuring out his cue to get on stage for the February 6 GOP debate.(Photo: Olivier Douliery/Getty Images)

Photo By Photo: Olivier Douliery/Getty Images

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Yeezy & Me - Carson got an unexpected boost last fall when an unlikely endorsement from Kanye West fell into his lap. Soon after declaring his own candidacy in 2020, the loud-mouthed rapper revealed that Carson was the candidate he respected the most, and even said he tried to reach out to him. For some reason, Carson didn't respond. It's too bad: Kanye could have done for him what Killer Mike did for Bernie Sanders. (Photo: Ethan Miller/Getty Images)

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Chores - Following a disappointing showing at the Iowa Caucus, many assumed that Carson's bid for the White House was done. He didn't help the rumors when he announced that he would be returning to Florida to "get some fresh clothes," rather than head straight to New Hampshire to compete for votes in the first primary. (Photo: Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)

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Conspiracy Theories - Carson actually said that Planned Parenthood is a bigger threat to Black people than racism. “One of the reasons that you find most of their clinics in Black neighborhoods is so that you can find way to control that population," he stated. "And I think people should go back and read about Margaret Sanger, who founded this place — a woman who Hillary Clinton by the way says she admires. Look and see what many people in Nazi Germany thought about her.”(Photo: Spencer Platt/Getty Images)

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Baby Hitler - One of Carson's standby analogies for his policies seemed to be Hitler and Nazi Germany. In justifying his opposition to gun control, he once said that if the Jews had had guns, perhaps the Holocaust wouldn’t have happened. His anti-Hitler rhetoric faced an impasse, however, when a reporter asked him, “As perhaps the most anti-Hitler, but also the most anti-abortion candidate, would you be in favor of aborting baby Hitler?” Carson looks to camera, truly interested by this proposition before answering, “I’m not in favor of aborting anybody."(Photo: Alex Wong/Getty Images)

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Carson the Comedian - The retired neurosurgeon was known to fall sleep on the campaign trail from time to time, and even admitted to snoozing while driving on more than one occasion. Carson seized a chance to poke fun at his now-infamous narcolepsy by cracking a joke during a FOX debate in which he was left largely ignored, “I’m very happy to get a question early on. I was going to ask you to wake me up when the time came.”(Photo: Spencer Platt/Getty Images)

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Anybody...? - By the end of his campaign, Carson knew he didn't stand a chance against the media juggernaut that Donald Trump had become. Rather than snatch some airtime by attacking the Republican frontrunner, like Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz decided to do, at his last debate Carson hilariously begged for some attention: "Can somebody attack me, please?" (Photo: Jessica Kourkounis/Getty Images)