Politico has reported that presidential candidate, Ben Carson, will be skipping his own primary party to head down to South Carolina, the next stop in the presidential nomination circuit.

The retired neurosurgeon will instead fly to South Carolina in the afternoon, his campaign said. Following Tuesday’s first-in-the-nation primary in New Hampshire, South Carolina Republicans will vote next, on Feb. 20.

It has to be asked though, why would this be information he shares on primary day, especially given what happened with the Iowa Caucus?

As you may recall, Carson was very clearly taking time off and announced as much through a CNN report. When the Cruz campaign made the strategic error of trying to win in Iowa by telling voters Carson wasn’t a serious candidate anymore, Carson joined forces with serial whiner, Donald Trump, to complain for days on end about the detrimental effect this had on the neurosurgeon’s 4th place showing.

Even with Cruz trumping Trump by around 4 pts, Carson insists that he was robbed despite the lack of hoodwinked voters appearing and claiming their steadfast support of Carson was undone by a Cruz voicemail.

Here’s my completely unsubstantiated guess on how things have unfolded for Dr. Carson.  Going into Iowa, he had second guesses about his chances and decided to take some time off to think. Given that he’s not an “insider” and doesn’t always understand “politics” he didn’t realize what an uproar such an announcement would cause. Heck, he wasn’t even sure he was dropping out! He just needed a pep talk and some Werther’s Originals and he’d have been fine!  But once the damage started to unfold, he began backtracking. But who to blame? CNN? His staff? Ted Cruz! That smarmy son-of-a-biscuit. It’s HIS fault!

Going into New Hampshire, he surely already understood the damage he could do to himself if he were to even hint that his campaign is in trouble. So why would he announce he’s going straight to SC rather than seeing the last day of primaries through to the bitter end? Maybe he’s not going to SC to campaign. Heck, maybe the guy who gave him the pep talk and the Werther’s Original candy on his front porch gave him a much better idea of what to do in South Carolina.

Of course I could be wrong about all of this. But rest assured, merely saying it will cause Carson to lose 1-2 pts in New Hampshire. That’s how this stuff works.