While Ben Carson has publicly been reticent in attacking Republican rival Donald Trump, his top advisers conclude that the billionaire is "crazy and that his campaign is imploding,"
The Washington Examiner reports.
As a result, the Carson campaign has "decided to stick with a policy of non-engagement because they believe Trump is self-destructing and they don't want to get in the way," the report says.
Carson continues to nip at Trump's lead in national polling — and he is less than a point behind the developer in the recent Real Clear Politics average.
The thinking among the Carson campaign, according to the report, is that voters in early states will see many of Trump attacks on Carson from his 95-minute rant Thursday in Iowa in which he compared the retired pediatric neurosurgeon's admitted "pathological anger" as a teenager to that of a child molester.
"The idea is that a significant number of Republican voters favor an outsider candidate and are at this moment trying to decide between Trump and Carson, and constant replays of Trump's attack might nudge them toward Carson," the Examiner reports. "In that sense, Carson's aides believe Carson himself doesn't have to react because the media will do his work for him."
Trump was slammed widely by other GOP rivals for the Carson attacks, with the candidate himself only saying — through his business manager, Armstrong Williams — that people should "pray for him."
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