Geography 101 Fail: Ben Carson’s Campaign Releases Absurd US Map

On Tuesday, the New York Times ran an interview with one of Ben Carson’s top campaign advisers, Duane R. Clarridge. On discussion was the presidential candidate’s most recent foreign policy blunder, when he was unable to name a single country to call on to join in an anti-terror coalition.

"Nobody has been able to sit down with him and have him get one iota of intelligent information about the Middle East," Clarridge said, adding that he had personally been involved in weekly briefings to "make him smart.""We need to make them look like losers."

In response, the Carson campaign claimed Clarridge had only been an occasional advisor who had no real knowledge of the team’s inner workings. But the campaign was later forced to admit they had personally recommended Clarridge to the New York Times reporter.

Coming fresh on the heels of Carson’s claim that the Chinese are actively involved in Syria, the bottom line seems pretty simple: the retired neurosurgeon isn’t exactly a foreign policy whiz.

But according to a map of the continental United States released by the candidate on Tuesday, he’s not great with domestic policy, either.

To express his solidarity with US governors who have openly refused to accept Syrian refugees, the Carson campaign released the following graphic:

In all, the map radically misplaces five of the lower 48 states, with New England encroaching pretty heavily into Quebec.

To be fair, Carson was born in Michigan, and while he went to school in Connecticut – a state which the map relocates by roughly 150 miles – he later settled into life as a neurosurgeon in Maryland. Maybe he didn’t enjoy his time in the northeast. Maybe he’s not a Patriots fan. Maybe he hates the beautiful fall colors of a New England autumn. Maybe he’s never cared for the flavors of a Boston crab cake.

Whatever the cause of the mistake, it couldn’t come at a worse time.