Late in February, Dr.
Ben Carson, the
celebrated pediatric
neurosurgeon turned
political insurrectionist, was
trying to check off another box
on his presidential-campaign
to-do list: hiring a press
secretary. The lead prospect, a
public-relations specialist
named Deana Bass, had come
to meet him at the dimly lit
Capitol Hill office of Carson’s
confidant and business
manager, Armstrong Williams.
Carson sat back and
scrutinized her from behind a
small granite table, as life-size
cardboard cutouts of more
conventional politicians —
President Obama, with a tight
smile, and Senator John
McCain, glowering — loomed
behind each of his shoulders.
(The mock $3 bill someone had
left on a table in Williams’s
waiting room undercut any
notion that this was a
bipartisan zone; it featured
Obama wearing a turban.)
Bass seemed momentarily
speechless, and not just
because no one had warned
her that a New York Times
reporter would be sitting in on
her job interview. Though she
knew Williams — a jack-of-all-
trades entrepreneur who owns
several television stations and
a public-affairs business and
who hosts a daily talk-radio
show — through Washington’s
small circle of black
conservatives, the two hadn’t
spoken in years until he called
her two days earlier. He had
been struggling to come up
with the perfect national
spokesperson, he told her.
Then, at the gym, her name
popped into his head; Williams
was fairly certain she was the
one. Sitting across from a likely
candidate for president, Bass
was adjusting to the idea that
her life might be about to take
a sudden chaotic turn.
“It’s like getting the most
random call on a Monday that
you simply do not see coming,”
she said. “Oftentimes, that is
how the Lord works.”
Carson concurred: “It’s always
how he works in my life.”
Carson is soft-spoken and often
talks with his eyes half closed,
frequently punctuating his
sentences with a small laugh,
even if the humor of his
statement is not readily
apparent. Bass told Carson that
she had been a Republican
staff member on Capitol Hill
then worked for the
Republican National
Committee. In 2007 she started
a Christian public-relations
firm with her sister. She
enjoyed working on the Hill,
she said, but the pay wasn’t as
high as the hours were long.
“We figured that we worked
like slaves for other people,
and we wanted to work for
ourselves.”

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