On the day before he came to Atlanta, Republican presidential candidate Ben Carson, the neurosurgeon, published an op-ed piece in USA Today that focused on the reluctance of some in the GOP to express the motive of the Charleston, S.C., shooter. A taste:
Let's call this sickness what it is, so we can get on with the healing. If this were a medical disease, and all the doctors recognized the symptoms but refused to make the diagnosis for fear of offending the patient, we could call it madness. But there are people who are claiming that they can lead this country who dare not call this tragedy an act of racism, a hate crime, for fear of offending a particular segment of the electorate.
So when we sat down on Tuesday, within the cool confines of the Atlanta Athletic Club in Johns Creek, the topic hung like a slow curve:
Insider: Are you happy with how Republicans have dealt with the Charleston issue since last week?
Carson: I'm glad to see that the people at the state level – the legislators and the governor, who really should be dealing with it – are dealing with it. I'm very pleased to see that.
Insider: In your op-ed piece, were you chastising those who refused to call the murders a racist act?
Carson: Not really. Some people have characterized it as chastisement, because they want to create controversy. Basically, what I'm saying is that you can put up Confederate flags everywhere or get rid of them. But that's not the essential issue.
The essential issue is, where are people’s hearts and minds? That’s what we really should be working on. We have a tendency to grab symbols do symbolic things and think that we’ve solved the problem. And we really haven’t.
Insider: Where do we go from here? How do we change hearts and minds?
Carson: First of all, we have to have open discussions about it, and recognize there's always more than one point of view. There are a lot of people in our society who are very uncomfortable with symbols associated with slavery. There are other people in our society who lost family members and important parts of their heritage in the Civil War. And they like to commemorate that….
The way that we solve [the conflict] is not ‘my way or the highway.’ That results in somebody winning and somebody having a great deal of animosity. Wouldn’t it be better to sit down with both sides, with both points of view and see if you can reach an accommodation? That always makes more sense.
Insider: You grew up in Detroit. I can't expect that you had a whole lot of interchange with Confederate symbolism.
Carson: I've had interchanges with very racist people.
Insider: I don't doubt that. But when did you get your first dose of the Confederacy?
Carson: Probably on a visit to Tennessee. Which is the first time I saw colored and white drinking fountains.
Insider: How old were you?
Carson: Six.
Insider: Which part of Tennessee?
Carson: Chattanooga.
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Insider: Where is your strength at this point? Is your strength domestic policy? Have you been able to bone up enough on foreign policy?
Carson: I'm very comfortable with either one. I've done a lot of boning up.
Insider: How do you study to be a presidential candidate? Is it like med school?
Carson: No, there's not that much. Not nearly that much. But you go to the major topics of the day, and you read up on them and you talk to a bunch of people who are experts in those areas. And you ask them what do they think you need to know.
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Insider: If the U.S. Supreme Court cuts off Obamacare premium subsidies in states like Georgia that don't have their own exchanges, what is your message going to be?
Carson: My message is that obviously, the 9.8 million people who would be affected in the exchanges – we can't allow them to fall through the safety net. There needs to be a stopgap measure. But the big message is to Congress, that they need to come up with an alternative. They need to come up with it in the relatively near future.
Obviously, it would be best if [Republicans and President Barack Obama] worked in harmony, as opposed to as enemies. Because we need to take health care out of the political arena….
The reason that I’m not a big fan of the so-called Affordable Care Act is not because it doesn’t work and because it’s not affordable, but because it fundamentally changes the relationship between the people and the government….
Insider: Has Obamacare had any success in any area?
Carson: Certainly there are some people who did not have insurance who have gotten insurance. And I think that's a good thing. But the system that I proposed would also propose insurance for those people. Much better insurance….
Insider: What happens if the Supreme Court upholds the Affordable Care Act. Where would you suggest Republicans go?
Carson: I would suggest that they still should put forth an alternative. And they should work on removing the mandates.
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Insider: Are you still not talking about gay marriage?
Carson: Other than what I've said about it, and I think that the Constitution protects everybody, but it doesn't give anybody extra rights to change everything for everybody else….
Why not just have a situation where you live and let live? Anybody – I don’t care what their sexual orientation is, but if they’re adults and they want to have a relationship that’s legalized, that allows them hospital visitation, property rights – that can easily be done with a legal document.
Insider: That gets back to civil unions. When Georgia passed its constitutional ban in 2004, we didn't stop with gay marriage. We outlawed civil unions as well. Did opponents of gay marriage make a mistake there?
Carson: I probably wouldn't have done that. I wouldn't have put it in a sexual context. I would have said any two adults who want to have a legalized relationship, can do so. End of story. It doesn't have to be anything sexual at all….
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Insider: I was talking to my dentist about you yesterday. He wanted to know how what you learn about brain surgery translates to what you do as a presidential candidate. Where is the overlap?
Carson: The overlap is that you learn how to do very complex things. You learn how to put together teams of people to create a vision. Some of them know things that you don't know, but you learn how to make it all work together.
It’s really about how you get things done, rather than how much time have you spent in politics. Because there are a lot of people who have spent a lifetime in politics and haven’t gotten anything done.
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Insider: I've met plenty of presidential candidates, but I've never met anyone with a softer voice than you.
Carson: I used to have a horrible temper. I was very outrageous at one point.
Insider: You are probably the calmest presidential candidate I have every run across.
Carson: That doesn't mean that I don't have a backbone, though. Some people mistake that soft-spokenness for lack of will. And it's definitely not true. Which you will find out in the debates.
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