The Winnowing Out Process

Ben Carson already knew the world was not a kind place but, unfortunately, unkindness reached out and struck him again: A quarter of his supporters abandoned him for Ted Cruz.

In a poll in Iowa a month ago Carson led Donald Trump but now he’s dropped into third place – with Cruz (at 23%) and Trump (at 25%) running neck in neck.

To Ted Cruz this must look like the blessing he’s been praying for and the culmination of months of blood, sweat, tears and brilliant political strategies – but, looked at another way, there may be a more elemental force at work here: The Winnowing Out Process.

In most campaigns there is only a limited amount of information available to voters – so candidates reach out to the voters they want and fill the void with ads saying, Here’s why you should vote for me.

But in Presidential campaigns an avalanche of information descends on voters and the Americans who follow politics with the same passion basketball fans follow UNC or Duke sit at computers happily clicking a mouse until they spot the candidate they like.

They find the candidate – he doesn’t find them.

Months ago evangelical voters in Iowa began watching and clicking and decided the candidates most like them were Ben Carson, Mike Huckabee and Ted Cruz.

Unfortunately for Governor Huckabee he was also old news and never caught fire. Cruz was a new face and sounded fine. But so did Ben Carson and he had one additional virtue: No one ever confused him with a politician.

What followed wasn’t a marriage – it was more like an engagement or a courtship: Those voters began to follow Ben Carson’s every move, watching him in debates, following him on Facebook and Twitter, weighing his strengths and fretting over his weaknesses until, at the end of the day, they decided Ben Carson was not the President they’d been dreaming of. And their gaze turned back to Ted Cruz.

Ben Carson had been winnowed out.

Years ago, the first time Steve Forbes ran for President, I had dinner one night with his brother who told me, Here’s how a Presidential campaign works: First, they stand my brother up on a stage. Then they strip off all his clothes. Then they pound on him. They beat him to a pulp. It’s brutal. But, you know, if you think about it, there’s a kind of logic to it: Because anyone who can survive that ordeal probably has the strength to be President of the United States.

That’s the winnowing out process.