Carson: I didn't expect 'giant leap' over Trump

Ben Carson, the new Republican front-runner in the Iowa caucuses race, voiced surprise about his surge past Donald Trump during a phone interview Friday with The Des Moines Register.

“I expected that I was going to sort of inch past Trump, but I didn’t think it would be that giant leap,” Carson said.

The latest Des Moines Register/Bloomberg Politics Iowa Poll, released just hours before the interview, showed Carson at 28 percent, leading the billionaire businessman by 9 percentage points, with the rest of candidates trailing far behind.

Carson said he holds no particular strategy on how to keep the lead in Iowa.

Front-runner status in Iowa comes with an inherent target on your back. It’s a spot held this year by only two others: Trump and Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, who dropped out of the race last month after a rapid decline in polling.

“For me, since I’m not a politician, I don’t really spend a lot of time strategizing about how I’ll do this and how I can get this and that,” Carson said, noting that it’s been a point of tension with campaign staff.

“I’m going to be who I am, and that’s it. If that works, great, and if it doesn’t, that’s fine, too.”

The passivity begged a follow-up: Do you really want to maintain the lead and win the GOP nomination?

“I would prefer that. But it’s not about me. It’s about the people,” he said.

A surge and a lull in Iowa

Carson’s surge in Iowa has come despite a lull in campaigning in the state. He has held only one day of public stops here since speaking 10 weeks ago at The Des Moines Register's Political Soapbox at the Iowa State Fair.

In the meantime, Carson celebrated his 64th birthday, vacationed for more than a week on the Amalfi Coast of Italy and launched a book tour, which prohibits certain campaign activity. He's in Iowa Saturday for four book tour stops, plus one campaign event in Ames.

Carson said his team has a national strategy, and in October alone his schedule includes events in Texas, Virginia, Tennessee, Colorado and Missouri.

"So it's not like we’re sitting around twiddling our thumbs. We have to get around to all the various different states,” he said.

Questions over foreign policy experience 

The latest Iowa Poll shows some Republican caucusgoers see a lack of experience in foreign policy as an unattractive quality in Carson.

The candidate on Friday dismissed the poll finding as a false perception of him due to lack of opportunity to answer questions about his foreign policy stances.

“I have been asked, as you’ve seen in the debates, little or nothing about foreign policy. I think when people begin to actually ask me and get a chance to hear what I say, that perception will disappear pretty quickly,” he said.

So you don’t feel there’s anything lacking there?

“No, not at all," Carson said. "That’s not to say we can’t always learn more and I wouldn’t surround myself with experts.”

He said he already has “several people” advising him on foreign policy.

When asked for names, he shared only that of Retired Maj. Gen. Robert Dees, who the campaign has claimed as part of its team since the spring. Dees is a 31-year Army veteran and associate vice president for military outreach at Liberty University.

Asked about this week's news that Carson (and rival Donald Trump) had requested Secret Service protection, Carson said he expects protection "within the next month."

“There have been threats, and it looks like we’re going to be receiving protection," he said, declining to elaborate.

“We’ve really been advised not to talk about it.”