(Vox) A single-paragraph summary of Ben Carson's life story can — and does — electrify a room.
When Carson's business manager, Armstrong Williams, introduced the adored African-American doctor at January's South Carolina Tea Party Coalition Convention, a short biography brought the crowd to its feet:
"He is here! One of the greatest rags-to-riches stories ever produced in America, a young boy born in Detroit, Michigan, in abject poverty, who was able to become a scholar, and took that, in this place known as America, to become a world-renowned pediatric neurosurgeon, rarely losing a case. His gifts, they come from God and not from man! Ladies and gentlemen, the pediatric neurosurgeon, Doctor Benjamin Solomon Carson!"
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The brown-skinned, salt-and-pepper-haired, bespectacled 63-year-old approached the podium to deliver his keynote address. His biggest supporters, decked out in t-shirts and waving banners bearing his name, chanted, "Run, Ben, run!" — the mantra that they hope will goad him toward entering the 2016 presidential race.
