TOP HUCKABEE AIDE STEPS BACK FROM GAY MARRIAGE SUPPORT

Top Huckabee Aide Steps Back from Gay Marriage Support

Zeke J Miller @ZekeJMiller Philip Elliott / Little Rock, Ark. @Philip_Elliott

May 4, 2015

Scott Olson—Getty Images Former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee speaks to guests gathered at the Point of Grace Church for the Iowa Faith and Freedom Coalition 2015 Spring Kickoff in Waukee, Iowa on April 25, 2015.

He supported it in 2013 but not this year


Bob Wickers, the veteran GOP pollster and strategist and the top consultant to Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee’s presidential campaign, has stepped back from an outspoken role in support of same-sex marriage as he prepares to lead the evangelical icon’s presidential campaign.

Wickers, who worked on Huckabee’s 2008 and Mitt Romney’s 2012 campaigns, signed onto a 2013 friend of the court brief encouraging the Supreme Court to overturn California’s same-sex marriage ban. But his name was absent two years later when a larger group of top GOP operatives signed an amicus brief encouraging the Supreme Court to extend same-sex marriages nationwide.

Asked about his seeming walk-back at a dinner that the presumptive Huckabee campaign organized for reporters who traveled to Arkansas, Wickers declined to offer an on-the-record explanation. But his shift mirrors that of David Kochel, former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush’s campaign-designate, who signed the 2013 brief but dropped off the 2015 list.

Huckabee, who has discussed ways to circumvent the Supreme Court’s expected decision, is an outspoken opponent of same-sex marriages.

While campaign staffers frequently differ from their bosses on a range of positions, the divide on same-sex marriage highlights a challenge within the Republican Party, which is struggling to balance rapidly shifting demographics and public opinion with an ever-more-ardent conservative base.