The Ben Carson campaign appeared to be on life support today as two top staffers, campaign manager Barry Bennett and communications director Doug Watts, decided they had had all the fun to which they were entitled and resigned. This is just another sign of the turmoil and disorganization that seems to permeate Carson’s campaign organization.

“I told Dr. Carson this morning on the phone that we had another record fundraising quarter, and then I told him that I was resigning,” Bennett said. “My frustration level was that I needed to go.”

Ed Brookover is the new campaign manager and Bob Dees, a retired U.S. Army major general, will serve as campaign chairman, said Carson spokeswoman Deanna Bass, who is remaining with the campaign. Brookover is a long-time Republican political strategist who chaired the Washington-based political practice for Greener and Hook consulting firm and served as the political director for the National Republican Congressional Committee between 1995 and 1999.

I think that here at Redstate most of us have had doubts from the beginning about the candidacy of Ben Carson. It has always had more of the hallmarks of a Mouse That Roared scenario, where Carson began his campaign to elevate his public profile and then, quite unexpectedly, found himself the front runner. What we do know about the campaign is that it is burning cash like there is no tomorrow and it doesn’t seem to be a happy place.

Whether or not the fundraising for the quarter was “record breaking” as any mere human would interpret those words remains to be seen We’ve talked about how the Carson campaign spends about 90 cents to raise $1. This direct mail based fundraising strategy when combined to a high burn rate and the primaries getting underway doesn’t augur well for Carson. I think that unless things changed significantly in the past quarter, Carson will be entering his last quarter as a presidential candidate.

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