While enthusiasm in conservative circles continued to rise, he also drew unwelcome attention for a series of controversial comments. He's equated what he sees as the loss of personal freedom under Obama's health care law with slavery. He called citizens who refused to stand up against the Obama administration the equivalent of those who stood by and did nothing in Nazi Germany. While defending his belief that marriage should only be defined as between one man and one women, his loose phrasing made it appear he was comparing homosexuality to bestiality. (He later apologized.)
Those comments, and the topline economic policy platform Carson has pursued, have cost him the support of many of the same people who looked up to him as a community leader and role model in Baltimore.
Joshua DuBois, the former head of Obama's faith-based initiative in the White House, wrote in March 2014 at the Daily Beast that Carson's life story had “floored” him. It became “embedded in the back of my mind, a device I could pull from at low moments,” he said. Now, DuBois said, Carson's story “has become an American tragedy.”
“The problem is that, when exposed to the political limelight, Carson's 'gifted hands' have become careless, callous,” DuBois wrote. “And that's a huge problem for former admirers like me.”
Yet Carson's positions also have been one of his top selling points to his supporters. As some in the Republican establishment have urged a move away from the focus on social issues, or sought to hedge positions as public opinion has shifted, Carson's opposition to gay marriage and abortion, a pair of socially divisive issues that are always a key component of his remarks.
The presidential campaign marks the latest chapter in a life that registers as a political consultant's dream (or Hollywood director's—Cuba Gooding Jr. played Carson in the television adaptation of Gifted Hands, his autobiography). With the support and prodding of his mother, he rose from poor grades, a single-parent home, and poverty to attend Yale University and medical school at the University of Michigan.
He became the director of pediatric neurosurgery at Johns Hopkins Children's Center, all while becoming the first surgeon to successfully separate twins conjoined at the back of the head.
He was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President George W. Bush, has more than 60 honorary doctorate degrees, and has served on corporate boards including Kellogg Co. and Costco Wholesale Corp. (He will now resign from the boards, he says.) His foundation, Carson Scholars Fund, is operating in all 50 states and has given out nearly $6 million in scholarships to students for academic and humanitarian achievement.
Carson, who has three sons, is rarely without his wife, Candy, by his side. Though she has no official title, she's described by aides as a senior adviser on his team, a group that has hired a mix of businessmen and political veterans in recent months in preparation for a run. Before he decided to postpone travel to join his mother in ailing health, Carson was set to hit the road to early-voting states after his Detroit speech, with appearances in Iowa, South Carolina this weekend, and New Hampshire next week—a cycle aides say will be repeated often in the months ahead as Carson seeks to identify his path forward in the race.