Conservatives have a new darling: Ben Carson. Or, as they prefer to call him, Doctor Ben Carson.

Carson is a neurosurgeon. And his biography is genuinely impressive. African-American, and the son of a single mom in Detroit, Carson won acceptance into Yale and then the University of Michigan medical school. He would go on to become director of pediatric neurosurgery at Johns Hopkins, the youngest ever division director at that distinguished institution. He made news in 1987 when, leading a 70-person team, he was the first surgeon to successfully separate twins joined at the head.

But political fame came only recently. In early February, during a speech at the National Prayer Breakfast, he bemoaned the national debt, attacked progressive taxation and took jabs at Obamacare—all with President Obama sitting just a few feet anyway. Then, at last weekend’s Conservative Political Action Committee (CPAC) meeting, Carson hinted at political aspirations. “Let’s just say if you magically put me in the White House...” he said. Rush Limbaugh could barely contain himself. “I think Dr. Benjamin Carson has probably got everybody in the Democrat Party scared to death,” he said.

Whether Carson is really the man of conservative fantasies remains to be seen. A few weeks ago, I had the opportunity to debate him on WBUR’s “On Point” radio show. The subject was health care policy and I expected a sharp, all-out debate over first principles. Instead, we ended up agreeing a lot. I got the distinct impression his conservative positions on health reform didn’t go much deeper than talking points—that, for example, Obamacare emphasizes personal responsibility more than he realizes and that, once he worked through the details of policy, he’d come to realize that even a conservative version of reform couldn’t seriously improve access without substantial investments of money. Although I don’t imagine he’d ever endorse single-payer, he may be more open to the ideas of health reform than many of his would-be supporters.

Some of his views seem well-formed and deeply held: He staunchly opposes progressive taxation, he says, because it punishes the successful. But he has other ideas that might trouble his new conservative fans. In an interview with the Daily Caller, he revealed that he opposed not only the war in Iraq, but also the war in Afghanistan. He also hinted that he supports gay marriage.