“Clearly he’s not well known within Washington, D.C., with social conservative leaders. He’s more known for his battle with unions in Wisconsin,” said Tony Perkins, the president of the Family Research Council and one of about 50 people invited to huddle with Walker. “I think people are wondering, ‘Where does he stand?’”
Perkins, a former Louisiana state legislator and political operative who’s made himself into a power broker in evangelical circles, is one of Walker’s skeptics. “For the last few years, Governor Walker carefully avoided social issues, at one point even calling them a distraction,” he wrote in a newsletter that was sent to his group’s supporters in February. Perkins, who hasn’t endorsed in the Republican primary race, went on to suggest that Walker’s recent appeals to evangelicals were disingenuous.