POLITICS

Carly Fiorina and Mike Huckabee Joining G.O.P. Race on Heels of Ben Carson

By ALAN RAPPEPORT
PLAY VIDEO|1:04

Carly Fiorina’s Announcement Video

Carly Fiorina’s Announcement Video

In an online video on Monday, Carly Fiorina announced she was joining the Republican field in the 2016 race for president of the United States.
 By Carly for President on  May 4, 2015. Photo by Carly for President, via Reuters.
WASHINGTON — For the Republican Party, the presidential candidates keep coming.
The next wave arrives this week, with Carly Fiorina announcing her long-shot bid for the Republican nomination Monday morning and former Gov. Mike Huckabee of Arkansas set to announce his own on Tuesday. Ben Carson announced his bid on Sunday night. They will join Senators Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio and Rand Paul in the race.
Ms. Fiorina started things off low-key on Monday with an announcement, which is to be followed by a call with reporters and a virtual town-hall-style meeting. Later in the week, she will head to Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina.
A former chief executive of Hewlett-Packard, Ms. Fiorina is the second woman to make a run for the White House in this election cycle, following Hillary Rodham Clinton’s announcement last month. Ms. Fiorina brings strong business acumen and a promise to be a more compassionate version of Mitt Romney, the 2012 Republican nominee. And she has suggested that she is the perfect antidote to Mrs. Clinton, who many believe has an easy path to the Democratic nomination.
PLAY VIDEO|1:35

Ben Carson Announces Presidential Bid

Ben Carson Announces Presidential Bid

The retired neurosurgeon, in Detroit on Monday, discussed his decision to seek the 2016 Republican nomination for president.
 By Reuters on  May 4, 2015. Photo by Rebecca Cook/Reuters.
“I think that if Hillary Clinton were to face a female nominee, there are a whole set of things she won’t be able to talk about,” Ms. Fiorina said at a breakfast in Washington last month.
Ms. Fiorina did not have the limelight to herself. As she begins her publicity tour, Mr. Carson, a retired neurosurgeon who only recently became a prominent voice in the party, was in Detroit making a formal announcement of his bid.
“I can name a lot of people who’ve been in politics all their lives who you probably wouldn’t want to polish your shoes,” Mr. Carson told hundreds of supporters at the Music Hall Center for the Performing Arts in downtown Detroit.

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His unconventional candidacy included his wife, Candy Carson, playing violin during the national anthem and a gospel choir preceding Mr. Carson onstage with a version of Eminem’s “Lose Yourself.”
What Mr. Carson lacks in political experience he makes up for in brainpower. Raised in Detroit by a single mother, he went on to graduate from Yale and the University of Michigan Medical School and became the director of pediatric neurosurgery at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore. His skill at separating conjoined twins made him a medical folk hero.
Mr. Carson gained attention in political circles in 2013 after he was invited to give an address at the National Prayer Breakfast in Washington and warned that America was headed down the path of ancient Rome. With President Obama seated a few feet away, Mr. Carson, who is black, called the Affordable Care Act “the worst thing that has happened in this nation since slavery.” For conservatives, a star was born.
The week will also bring the return of an old political star. On Tuesday, Mr. Huckabee will gather supporters at Hempstead Hall in his hometown, Hope, Ark., to announce that he is planning to make another White House bid.
Popular with evangelical Christians, Mr. Huckabee won the Iowa caucuses in 2008 and remains one of the party’s stronger campaigners. Republican strategists suggest that he could peel votes away from candidates like Mr. Cruz and Gov. Scott Walker of Wisconsin, and that with so many Republicans seeking the nomination, another strong showing in Iowa would not be surprising.
“For guys like Walker and Cruz and maybe even Paul, Huckabee’s entry to the race probably has the effect of pulling them to the right, at least on social issues,” said Reed Galen, a political strategist who worked for former President George W. Bush and Senator John McCain of Arizona.
Former Gov. Mike Huckabee of Arkansas is expected to announce his presidential bid on Tuesday. Scott Olson/Getty Images 
Despite his strengths, Mr. Huckabee has struggled to broaden his appeal to more mainstream conservatives. He has spent the last several years as an analyst on Fox News and recently starred in an Internet infomercial for a diabetes treatment.
“It will be interesting to see if after eight years he still has kept that fire inside going,” Mr. Galen said.
The spotlight on all three new candidates, who languish in polls behind to the likes of former Gov. Jeb Bush of Florida and Mr. Walker, will be diminished by the fact that their announcements are clumped together.
With fund-raising a challenge for lesser-known candidates, prognosticators think that strong showings in Iowa and New Hampshire are their best chances of getting hot and breaking away from the pack as the nominating contests go forward.