Ben Carson, the Superior Outsider

Carson's rise suggests that it's possible to catch the populist wave roiling Republican politics and yet not be an obnoxious braggart who abuses anyone who crosses him and will say or do anything as long as he's getting attention. Ben Carson is a superior outsider to Donald Trump.

He is more gentlemanly and more conservative, with a more compelling life story. Carson is a man of faith who, despite his manifest accomplishments, has a quiet dignity and winsome modesty about him. Ben Carson is a throwback, whereas Donald Trump is a bold-faced name straight out of our swinish celebrity culture.

What they have in common is that they are political neophytes light on policy details who are memorable communicators precisely because they speak and carry themselves so differently from other politicians. Although the similarities stop there — Carson is what Trump calls "low energy," and yet he makes it work for him.

At the Faith and Freedom event in Washington in June, Carson gave a speech that had no obvious applause lines, never rose above a conversational tone, had very little political content — and left perhaps the best impression of any presentation by a candidate.

Few politicians have ever wielded soft-spokeness to such rhetorical effect. Carson aced the Fox debate when in his closing statement he didn't puff himself up and attempt to soar like candidates always do, but gently said a few nice things about his background as a surgeon, with a touch of humor. It was a hit.

If Carson's surge continues, one wonders if other contenders now doing all they can to kowtow to and copy the bombastic real-estate mogul will instead decide to kowtow to and copy the mild-mannered retired neurosurgeon.

Carson is a more natural fit for conservatives than Trump. If you like your outsider not to favor higher taxes, not to have once opposed the ban of partial birth abortion, not to speak favorably of socialized medicine, not to have been an erstwhile booster of Nancy Pelosi and Hillary Clinton, and not to have experience buying off politicians, Ben Carson (or Carly Fiorina) is a much better bet than Donald Trump.

And Carson is altogether a more sympathetic figure. He rose from nothing; Trump took over the family real-estate business. Carson's mom was one of 24 kids, had a third-grade education and worked as a domestic; Trump's father built tens of thousands of apartments in Brooklyn and Queens and amassed a fortune of $300 million.

Carson is a serious Christian who has a powerful testimonial about getting down on his knees as a young man unable to control his temper and saying, "Lord, unless you help me, I'm not going to make it."

Carson tells of how he prayed to God to give him the right woman and how he has been married to his wife, Candy, for 40 years; Trump brags about the beautiful women he has bedded.

Trump says he likes "The Art of the Deal" better than any book except the Bible, but he appears to have read just one of them. His evasions when he was asked a few basic questions in a Bloomberg interview about the Good Book were hilariously ham-fisted (he can't answer what his favorite verse is because that's too personal a question).

Trump is the most blatantly secular major presidential candidate since Howard Dean, and of course, he is running as a Republican, not a Democrat. Trump will have to do well in the Iowa caucuses that have been won most recently by Rick Santorum, Mike Huckabee and George W. Bush — a devout Catholic, an ordained Baptist preacher and an evangelical, none of whom were prone to fits of awkwardness and shyness when the Bible came up.

Trump is, to say the least, not of this mold. He is a successful creature of our culture of conspicuous display and tasteless braggadocio. It's no accident that he played himself in WWE wrestling dramas, or that he names everything after himself, or that he doesn't have enough superlatives for own personal qualities and wealth and accomplishments.

Not content simply to brag about his real achievements, Trump says things that are obviously self-inflating fables. Does anyone really believe that other candidates came up to Trump after the Fox debate and told him he had won, as he maintained in his post-debate interview with CNN's Don Lemon?

Carson has certainly made the most of his own renown, churning out best-sellers and raking in the speaking fees, but he operates from a baseline of self-respect and respect for others.

It's impossible to imagine him engaging in juvenile insult wars with random targets of his ire. Or imagine him calling a female journalist a "bimbo" for asking questions that he found unwelcome. Or commenting crudely on women's appearances.

Like Trump, Carson excoriates the culture of political correctness and has said his share of outrageous things, but he also doesn't consider it beneath him to occasionally apologize.

America long ago turned its back on self-restraint and gentlemanliness. Conservatives were the last holdouts, but their dalliance with Trump makes you wonder if they, too, are willing to surrender to celebrity excess as the new norm.

Ben Carson stands for something different. His personal story shows how true class isn't about riches, but about character. Donald Trump has all the finest things and I'd hazard to guess barely as much class as Ben Carson's penniless mother struggling to raise her sons had in her pinky.

Carson may not ultimately have the political pull of Trump, who is more mediagenic and can potentially spend much more money. Yet, if conservatives want to flirt with an unconventional candidate, Carson provides the opportunity to do it without a guilty conscience.

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