Republican presidential candidate Ben Carson said on Tuesday that he will ring in the new year – and hopefully jump-start his faltering campaign – by "altering" his strategy and its staffers, following a back-and-forth of hints and denials that changes were coming.
"We're going to certainly be altering some things in the campaign, and we will be talking about that quite publicly next week," Carson said on Fox Business, Politico reported.
That message seemed consistent with what Carson asserted in an interview with The Washington Post last week, in which he said he was looking to make changes to his staff.
"I'm looking at every aspect of the campaign right now. Everything is on the table, every job is on the table. And we're going to analyze it very carefully," Carson told The Washington Post just days before Christmas. "It's not perfect, and we're going to work on it."
However, in an appearance on CNN following The Washington Post interview, Carson sidestepped a question on the matter and tried to soften the idea that there are problems in his campaign that he was looking to remedy, even going so far as to say that his staffers are "spectacular."
"I think The Washington Post quite frankly had their story already written before they talked to me, and they were convinced that I was going to fire everybody and we were going to go in a completely different direction," Carson told CNN last week. "I think the people that I have are spectacular."
Then, in an another interview days later on CBS' Face The Nation, Carson once again hinted at campaign changes, saying "some alterations" were forthcoming.
"I want to make sure that we're doing everything that we can do – to make sure that the American people absolutely recognize the choice that they have. And if there are some things that need to be changed or tweaked, we certainly are going to be open to doing those things," Carson said, according to CBS. He added: "There will be some, some alterations. You know, we've been looking in every particular area. One thing I want to do is have a much more robust response to attacks, particularly when they are false."
Carson has shown a steady decline in the polls since peaking last month. RealClear Politics shows Carson polling at a 9.4 percent average after nearly reaching 25 percent in early November.
