This is a man who has a lifetime ACU rating of 98 out of 100. A man who has a perfect rating from the NRA in the U.S. Senate. A man who earned scores of 100 in 2014, 100 in 2013, 71 in 2012, and 100 in 2011 from the Family Research Council. A “Taxpayer Super Hero” with a lifetime rating of 95 from Citizens Against Government Waste. A man Club for Growth president David McIntosh called “a complete pro-growth, free-market, limited-government conservative.”

Across the board, Rubio’s stances, policy proposals, and rhetoric fall squarely within the bounds of traditional conservatism.

Rubio’s the guy who earned a 100 from National Right to Life in two straight cycles, and a zero rating from NARAL. He supports an abortion ban after 20 weeks, opposes exceptions for rape and incest (although he’s voted for legislation that includes those exceptions), and opposes embryonic stem-cell research. In the first Republican debate he declared, “Future generations will look back at this history of our country and call us barbarians for murdering millions of babies who we never gave them a chance to live.”…

On Obamacare, Rubio was the one who made the risk-corridor insurer bailout an issue, starting in 2013, which led to Congress’s enacting limits on how much taxpayer money insurers could be given to cover losses related to the newly insured. Insurance companies that spent small fortunes lobbying for the bill and fighting its opponents are now griping that they’re getting a bad deal and the law may eventually become unworkable for them. If Obamacare is eventually replaced, Rubio will have played a big role in making it happen.

He’s got the guts for entitlement reform, too. He wants to raise the retirement age for those under 55, change the benefit calculation for wealthy seniors who do not rely on Social Security, and eliminate the Social Security payroll tax after retirement age to encourage older Americans to stay in the workforce. He wants to open federal workers’ Thrift Savings Program to all Americans.