Ben Carson For President Has Collected $4 Million Toward 2016 Election

Just what the Doctor ordered

• How about a double doctor ticket of Dr. Rand Paul and Dr. Ben Carson?

Conservatives frustrated with the direction of the country think Dr. Ben Carson can change the course by winning the 2016 presidential race.

Now they just have to convince him.

The group, RunBenRun.org, a super PAC, has already raised $4 million toward a Carson bid for the Republican nomination and has collected 200,000 signatures for a petition to get him to join the race.

John Philip Sousa IV, the group’s national chairman, said Tuesday that members are working Carson on an almost daily basis, sending along petition-drive updates and hundreds of “clamorings” for him to run, received through letters, Facebook postings and other forms of communication reports Fox News.

“I don’t’ like the direction in which the county is going,” said Sousa, the great grandson of the late American composer John Philip Sousa, who wrote such iconic songs as “Stars and Stripes Forever” and “Semper Fidelis,” the official march of the U.S. Marine Corps. “Carson doesn’t whine like some other Republicans. He brings a solution to the table.”

The fundraising numbers are indeed competitive -- considering Kentucky GOP Sen. Rand Paul -- a top-tier 2016 hopeful -- has purportedly raised roughly $4.7 million.

But while Carson might be able to match fundraising numbers, at least for now, the equally important question is whether he can assemble a campaign operation, considering he’s not expected until next year to make a decision about running.

Sousa told FoxNews.com that his group, formally known as the National Draft Ben Carson for President Committee, has offers out now to three regional political directors while assembling volunteers, upgrading technology and performing other key tasks associated with building a campaign infrastructure.

The group is already running ads on cable TV and plans to start direct mailings and advertise in local markets to increase Carson’s name recognition.

Sousa thinks Carson, an African-American and former director of pediatric neurosurgery at Johns Hopkins University, can appeal to Republicans, so-called Reagan Democrats and take 17 percent of the minority vote.

“We have a strategy that goes beyond saying, ‘You need another black president,’ ” he said. “And we’re going to take away those voters from Democrats.”