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| Iowa State Patrol |
Speculation is abounding on the blogosphere that aspiring presidential contender Ben Carson planned to briefly suspend his political campaign long before the fatal crash which claimed the life of one his staffers, and that this entire accident has been a media attention ploy.
At the end of December, Mr. Carson's campaign was already in trouble, with an article by the Associated Press -- Ben Carson's Top Two Staffers Quit, Question Retired Neurosurgeon's Readiness for White House -- reporting:
"The staff turmoil at the highest reaches of the Carson campaign is the
latest setback for his presidential bid, which displayed significant
fundraising power this summer and for a brief time was atop some
preference polls."
Less than a month after staffers began quitting his campaign team, an accident detracts attention from his faltering campaign. Internet skeptics are already speculating on the possibility that the van transporting Mr. Carson's staff was sabotaged. This may have been done through hacking, which although once the realm of science fiction, is now science fact.
Last July, Senators Ed Markey and Richard Blumenthal introduced "legislation designed to require cars sold in the U.S. to meet
certain standards of protection against digital attacks," with Wired reporting that car hacking was no longer a "theoretical threat." That same summer, hackers were able to stop a Jeep on the highway.
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| Sacrificial lamb? Carson Campaign |
In the Iowa accident which claimed the life of Bradlen Joplin, a newly-hired staffer, Carson immediately had prepared remarks against his opponents: "I just hope that maybe his death might help some people to think about
the hard-heartedness that has infected our land. People are just mean
and they just say things to try to hurt people. They don’t care about
anybody but themselves and he was just the opposite of that.”
If there is any credence to Carson's involvement in the death of his staffer, it would fit the pattern of previous US presidents using assassinations to consolidate political power.
