Carson maintains he doesn’t want to run and isn’t making any serious preparations for a bid, but in a Thursday interview with The Hill, it was clear that he has thought seriously about the logistics of a campaign.

“My hope, obviously, is that someone else will really catch fire and generate a great deal of enthusiasm. If that doesn’t happen in another year and there’s still a lot of people clamoring for another option, then I will have to really look seriously at it,” he told The Hill in a phone conversation.

But people are already clamoring for Carson. He wouldn’t give specifics on where his packed speaking schedule had taken him in the past few months, but said he visits states in every corner of the country, headlining fundraisers and civic events and speaking at schools about conservative principles and on the dangers of ObamaCare.

“People are so thrilled to see that they’re not the only one with common sense. But the problem is the people with common sense have been beaten down so they’re afraid to express themselves,” he said.