Ben Carson's Home-field Disadvantage

Ben Carson was always going to be a long-shot for the GOP presidential nomination. And one of the many hurdles he faces was front and center Monday when the prominent neurosurgeon announced his candidacy Detroit, the city where he was born. In Carson’s hometown, there are Ben Carson Reading Rooms and the Benjamin Carson High School of Science and Medicine. But Politico says despite a busy day of announcement events in the place that looms so large in his campaign narrative, his connection to Detroit is badly frayed. He moved away long ago — he now lives in Florida — and hasn’t kept up with community leaders or pastors in the city. More important, he’s launching his presidential bid as a staunch conservative and a fierce critic of President Barack Obama in a city that is a majority-black Democratic stronghold that gave the president 98 percent of its vote in 2012.