LOS ANGELES (AP) – Amid all the bombast in the Republican race for president, Ben Carson comes across more like a whisper.
He is, in some ways, the anti-Trump – a gentle candidate who lets his record as a renowned brain surgeon speak for itself. The bragging about his resume and place in the polls, on the rare occasions it comes, is delivered with none of the superlatives that Donald Trump can’t seem to go without.
Yet the 63-year-old Republican, the only African-American seeking the White House in 2016 – has tapped into the same wave of anti-establishment outrage fueling the billionaire realty TV star’s rise.
“The likelihood of someone like me getting through this process and making it to president is virtually impossible,” Carson told The Associated Press in a recent interview. “I just have to be myself. And if being myself resonates with the American people, then they will choose me.
“And if it doesn’t,” he said, “they will choose somebody else.”