This super PAC is still raising money for Ben Carson — even though he dropped out
A super PAC called the 2016 Committee is still raising money for Ben Carson — even though he ended his campaign weeks ago.
"The 2016 Committee will now kind of morph itself into the objective of having Dr. Carson be Donald Trump's running mate," the founder of the fundraising group, John Philip Sousa IV (yes, he's a descendant of the patriotic composer), told supporters last week. The flaw in this plan, of course, is that this is not how running-mate selection works: If he is nominated, Donald Trump's running mate will not be picked by a former candidate's super PAC.
Further complicating Sousa's decision to keep fundraising is where the 2016 Committee finds most of its support. While many super PACs are funded by a few high-dollar donors, this one collects mainly small donations. And according to analysis of the organization's FEC records of donors who gave more than $200 by the Daily Caller, nearly half of the 2016 Committee's listed donors are retirees who may be on a fixed income.
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Though Sousa promises supporters that "Whatever you send will be used carefully to put Ben Carson on the Republican presidential ticket in 2016," in practice the committee has spent money on things like buying 450,000 copies of Sousa's own book and taking paychecks for hundreds of thousands of dollars.
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Bonnie Kristian was a deputy editor and acting editor-in-chief of TheWeek.com. She is a columnist at Christianity Today and author of Untrustworthy: The Knowledge Crisis Breaking Our Brains, Polluting Our Politics, and Corrupting Christian Community (forthcoming 2022) and A Flexible Faith: Rethinking What It Means to Follow Jesus Today (2018). Her writing has also appeared at Time Magazine, CNN, USA Today, Newsweek, the Los Angeles Times, and The American Conservative, among other outlets.
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