title:  Ben Carson Tells CNN He Thinks His Campaign Might Be A Scam
text: During an appearance on CNN on Tuesday, Republican presidential candidate Ben Carson wondered aloud if his presidential campaign is all a big scam.During the interview, a laughing Carson told CNN s Poppy Harlow that his campaign had employed people who didn t really seem to understand finances. A moment later, as if the possibility had just dawned on him for the very first time, Carson added,  or maybe they did maybe they were doing it on purpose. It s impossible to tell if Carson is extremely stupid or extremely good at acting stupid. Either way, he would be an extremely terrifying president.As Addicting Info reported in January, Ben Carson s campaign staff started jumping ship on New Year s Eve, with more than 20 of former staffers resigning in a 24 hour period.The resignations followed months of accusations that the candidate s campaign is little more than a money-making scheme, which also doubles as a promotional tour to sell books.The fact that Carson s campaign has been raising money hand over fist, but investing very little in actual campaign activities, was just one indicator that Carson s presidential campaign was a hoax.As New York Magazine pointed out months ago, the Carson campaign is  structured much more like a scamming venture than a political one. As evidence, New York Magazine also reported, An astronomical 69 percent of his fund-raising totals are spent on more fund-raising. (Bernie Sanders, by contrast, spends just 4 percent of his intake on fund-raising.) In addition to direct mail, Carson seems to have undertaken a massive phone-spamming operation. Spending most of your money to raise more money is not a good way to get elected president, but it is a good way to build a massive list of supporters that can later be monetized. Perhaps it is a giveaway that the official title for Armstrong Williams, the figure running the Carson  campaign,  is  business manager,  as opposed to  campaign manager.  It does suggests that Carson is engaged in a for-profit venture. Even more telling, a significant number of the companies hired to run Carson s costly telemarketing and direct-mail campaigns just happen to be run by friends and family members of staffers.Then there s the fact that, while Carson s fundraising totals surpass that of every other GOP candidate, his polling numbers are terrible.While Carson told CNN that  things are much better  with his campaign now, according to the Atlantic, not much has changed.The campaign is still spending huge amounts of money on raising more money, diverting millions to businesses like TMA Direct, which is owned by Mark Murray, one of Carson s top fundraisers.According to the Atlantic, Murray has also long worked with Eleventy and InfoCision, two Akron, Ohio-based companies. InfoCision has been implicated in past scams. Eleventy s president is chief marketing officer for Carson. Communication Management Source is run by Joanne Parker, whose husband Dean Parker departed the campaign in December. According to the latest financial disclosures, the Carson campaign paid Eleventy Marketing $4.8 million in the last quarter, while InfoCision got a whopping $2.4 million. Communication Management Source didn t make out quite as well, being paid $1.3 million.It s almost impossible to believe that Carson doesn t know whether or not his campaign is a scam to bilk low-information conservative voters out of millions of dollars.His weird, out-of-place laughter, combined with his sad attempts to convince the public that it s all behind him now, are pretty good indicators that he s more than aware that his campaign is a hoax.With the money still rolling in, though, Carson is clearly going to try to keep the scam going for as long as he possibly can.Image from wikipedia