Why I support Marco Rubio for President

“A man of faith, Marco will guide our country along a better path as he stands up for life for not only the unborn, but also for the sick, the suffering, and all those entrenched in poverty. We need a leader like Marco in the White House to ensure that America’s best days do not lie behind us and that each and and every one of us has a shot at a better tomorrow.” County Councilman Justin Bradley, Spartanburg County District 2

I have been blessed to meet with almost all of the 2016 Republican presidential candidates during the course of this race. We truly have a great field of candidates to take on the Democrats and win back the White House. However, one candidate stands above the rest in my mind: Marco Rubio. Here is why I am supporting Marco Rubio in the South Carolina Republican Primary on February 20th:

1. The September 11th attacks, almost 15 years ago, happened during my freshman year of high school. Like most in my generation, millennials, I came of age during the War on Terror against Radical Islam. I remember vividly the images of planes being flown into buildings and the realization that the world around me was nowhere near as safe as I thought growing up in my small community. Unfortunately, the threats that we now face are the greatest that I can remember. Senator Rubio clearly understands the threats against our country and the steps that we need to take to stop radical Islamic terrorists and countries who wish to do us harm.
2. Marco’s story embodies the American Dream. It’s a story that I and millions of working class Americans relate to and are inspired by. Although it is hardly a reason alone to elect someone, I do believe that Marco’s story is compelling and blunts the attacks that the Democrats and the left will use against our nominee: that the GOP is the party of the wealthy, that they don’t understand the needs of working-class Americans, that the GOP is uncaring. Marco knows what it’s like to live paycheck to paycheck, to have family members who are on government assistance and unable to find work, to have a crushing burden of student loans that delays starting a family or saving for the future. Marco also knows how he and his family were able to overcome those circumstances. He understands that unfortunately, too often our government policies hinder upward mobility or limit the incentive to move up the economic ladder. He has created policies specifically geared toward changing the incentives, and they are based on conservative principles to offer a clear counterweight to the left’s arguments. This is the exact kind of approach that leaders like Tim Scott, Mike Lee, and others have pushed to make sure that the opportunity to seek the American Dream remains within the reach of every American.
3. Marco Rubio also understands the great changes happening in our economy right now. Technology is bringing more resources and capabilities to everyone — opportunities that past generations could never have dreamed about. But it also is bringing with it big disruptions to the current economy and upsetting entire industries. The left is ready to regulate these new companies out of existence or into the ground. Unless conservatives show up to the debate and understand these technologies, they will have a monopoly on public policy that address both the great possibilities and the challenges that these changes will bring. Marco understands these technologies better than any of the candidates and has policy plans to help harness these opportunities while ensuring everyone with the will and intellect to create the next Uber, Amazon, or Facebook can do so without unnecessary government burdens.
4. Marco Rubio is a solid conservative. I know a lot of people wants to label Marco as part of some moderate “establishment” wing of the party, but as Rush Limbaugh stated recently, Marco Rubio is a solid, movement conservative who took on the establishment and won. He has delivered the strongest blow by anyone to date against Obamacare. As was recently documented by the National Review:

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.”…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.”

We need a strong conservative president who can unite the various factions within our party under a banner of bold colors the way Ronald Reagan did in 1980.

4. Finally, Marco Rubio can win big against the Democrats. There are basically two views about how Republicans can win in 2016. The first prescribes to the theory that working-class whites, who may be traditional Republican voters, did not turn out in prior elections and a movement conservative can excite them and get them to the polls. A number of candidates have bet their entire campaigns on this theory. The other theory is that Republicans must compete for the votes of minorities, young voters, and women, who voted in overwhelming numbers for Obama in 2008 and 2012 and are becoming a larger share of the electorate every year. I disagree with the premise that a candidate who can do one of these would be precluded from doing the other, and I fully believe that Marco is the Republican conservative candidate that can do both. First, as I laid out earlier, Marco has an aggressive policy agenda to ensure everyone has equal opportunity to succeed and lift the barriers created by the federal government that hinder working-class Americans. Second, Marco can also make inroads with minorities, women, and young voters. However, he does not have to do so by following the agenda of the left and establishment elites: moderate our agenda, throw our principles out the window, and offer the same policies as the Democrats with a smaller price tag. Marco believes and exemplifies delivering the same optimistic and opportunity-focused conservative agenda to all Americans will win over voters who might not traditionally listen to our candidates. By doing so, Marco could win as large a share of the vote as Ronald Reagan did in his landslide victories.

We have a chance to elect the next generation of conservative leader to take the mantle of Reagan to a new generation of voters and make this a new American century. I believe that candidate is Marco Rubio, and I hope you join me in supporting him in the South Carolina Primary on February 20th.

Justin Bradley is a conservative Republican County Councilman in Spartanburg, SC, representing the northeastern part of the county in District 2. Justin was elected to the council in 2014 in his first foray into politics at 26, and became the first and only Republican millennial elected official to date in Spartanburg. Justin is a proud Christian, husband, and father of two young children.