New School Politics

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Why do we have a entitlement program for the wealthiest of Americans?

Think I am sounding like a liberal? Well, actually I am talking about social security, which I don’t see reason for, especially considering that the elderly are far wealthier than the average American.

Popularity: 26% [?]

The award goes to Steven Landsburg:

Mike Huckabee is not my favorite candidate, though I relish the irony of an evolution-denier whose basic appeal is to voters’ most apelike instincts.

Here’s the entire article, which actually concentrates on Mike Huckabee’s notably outside-the-box tax plan, better known as the “FairTax,” which basically replaces all federal taxes in favor of a national sales tax. Landsburg, a professor at the U. of Rochester, comes to the defense of shifting taxation toward consumption in light of a Huckabee’s plan being lambasted by pundits (most notably, Bruce Bartlett) and media (AP story) lately. BU professor, Laurence Kotlikoff, also comes to the FairTax’s defense.

Like Landsburg, I applaude Huckabee for his support of the FairTax. Not only do I think that it shows the Governer is willing to think for himself–which I don’t suspect he often does–but I also believe that the plan, which was first proposed ten years ago, could be economically beneficial. I am inclined towards a national sales tax essentially because:

1. It shifts the tax burden from overall income (personal and corporate) to consumption, which enhances the incentive to save and invest. This is especially important to the US economy whose savings rate is particularly low, and whose current credit crunch can be strongly connected with insufficient accumulation of real wealth.

2. It eliminates the IRS, which costs taxpayers about $20 billion. Even more expensive, however, is the $200 billion plus that Americans spend on filing their federal taxes each year, which would also be eliminated.

3.  It eliminates the complication of the 60,000+ page tax code, which is riddled by all sorts of loopholes. The incentives the code creates encourages the diversion of resources from productive activity to evasive activity. Some, including to the GAO, estimate these costs to be anywhere from two to five per cent of GDP.

My reservations on the FairTax include:

1. The potential menu costs of a massive alteration of taxes and costs (costs would likely rise in the short term because while the sales tax would kick in immediately it would take longer for prices to come back to normal levels as the embedded costs from income and corporate taxes go away).

2. Proposals for a national sales tax include a monthly rebate from the government to lower income earners to compensate for their new tax burden. However, this would require massive bureaucracy to execute the measure. The question is, how much would it cost and how would it compare to that of the current tax code.

3. Tax evasion would probably be easier under a sales tax given taxed monetary exchanges are much smaller and plentiful than under an income tax. Once again, this is more of a question than a statement–more inquiry is necessary, but logic leads me to initially believe it.

Popularity: 22% [?]

Author of Freakonomics, Steven Levitt, along with Sudhir Venkatesh, released a preliminary version of their new study on the prostitution market in Chicago. My favorite discovery of all:

A prostitute is more likely to have sex with a police officer than to get officially arrested by one.

I recommend skimming the whole thing. Its interesting to see how economic laws can apply to even the taboo and fringe aspects of life. For instance, Johns pay a premium for sex without a condom; that premium is comparatively higher for more risky types of intercourse.

Moreover, the wages for the occupation of prostitute are above the national average at $25-30 per hour. The relatively high wages of prostitutes can be attributed to the significant risk associated with the job.

The new issue of The Economist features an article on the study.

Popularity: 20% [?]

It is no secret that Mitt Romney won the Michigan and Nevada primaries because of his strong economic background. While it is true that Romney faced little competition in Nevada and that he was a “native son” in Michigan, his business and executive experience is what put him over the top in the two primary states where the number one issue is the economy.

From the Detroit News-
The optimistic economic message former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney brought to his native state was a big reason he finished on top of Tuesday’s Republican primary here. A solid majority of both Republican and Democratic primary voters said their motivating issue was the economy, according to the National Election Pool exit poll.

According to CNN’s exit polling data from Nevada, Romney beat his rivals on the economy by overwhelming margins. For the Democrats in Michigan, the story was the same. The economy was the most important issue by nearly fifty percent with Iraq a distant second. While it may be too early to tell who is taking a lead in either primary elections, it is clear what issue is becoming-the economy.

About a week ago Goldman Sachs predict that the US economy will find itself in a recession in 2008; which means a decline in economic growth for more than two consecutive sessions (two quarters). Many market analysts believe that recession began prior to the new year with the series of poor fiscal news last December.

One of the least known but best indicators of economic health is the Baltic Dry Freight Index. The index measures the price of shipping dry bulk goods (iron ore, wheat, coal, soybeans, etc…) by sea in cargo ships. A decline in this index means there are less consumers for those goods; currently the biggest consumers of those products are China, India, and the United States. The declining rates indicate a slow down in the global economy, a slow down that the dry bulk market will see before the retail and consumer reports here in the United States. The bulk market also suffers from a problem that much of the economy does. It had built new vessels anticipating continued demand, but the demand from China and India has decreased which means that there is no need for the hundreds of new ships on order. This parallels what has been happening in many other markets, there is a massive surplus of new homes across the US and Europe and thus housing prices have slumped; the same has happened with the automotive market and in other consumer areas such as electronics. On the flip side, supply for natural resources has not caught up to demand so natural gas, oil, grain, corn, copper, and even milk prices have soured anywhere from 4-50% over the past year alone. Consumers are being faced with high mortgage rates, a dollar worth less, and greater expense at their grocery store and the gas station. The dollar will simply not get you as far in 2008 as it did in 2007.

So how does this effect the election? The two states where Mitt Romney and Hillary Clinton did best (Michigan and Nevada) are the two states with the highest foreclosure rates and highest unemployment rates of any in the country. The pain that the citizens in these two states are currently feeling will unfortunately be felt throughout the country by November of this year.

Jim Cramer made an interesting point the other day; since statisticians first began measuring personal per capita income the incumbent party or candidate ALWAYS looses the election when per capita income decreased. By November 2008 average per capita income will have decreased due to economic decline in the first several quarters of this year.

This would imply that the Democrats will win this election no matter what; but the question that arises is what happens when a business man is thrown into the equation. Indeed, Mitt Romney did win an election in the most liberal state in the country and was able to do so while the state faced a massive fiscal crisis. If economic news continues to become more dire over the next several months (and it almost certainly will) then Mitt Romney will have a big advantage over his rival John McCain. Indeed, even Rudy Giuliani could benefit from the change in voters’ number one issue. In Florida he is now focusing on his fiscal record as Mayor and how he turned around NYC’s languishing economy during the 1990s. Even Mike Huckabee’s populist message may begin to resonate more strongly as the economy takes a turn for the worse. The one who this does hurt is John McCain who has almost no economic credentials and even opposed the Bush tax cuts which are considered a staple of accepted conservative economic policy. In addition, McCain also finds himself on the wrong side of the issue that Republicans have claimed to be their second most important issue-illegal immigration.

In the Democratic primary this should also favor Hillary Clinton as she appears to have an upper hand over Senator Obama among voters who consider the economy to be the biggest issue. Many voters become nostalgic when they recall the great economy under Clinton.

I am always skeptical of those who heavily blame or give credit to Governors and Presidents for the quality of the economy that existed when they governed. Outside of having (some) control over the governments budget, there is little they can do to effect monetary policy (controlled by the Fed) and there is nothing they can do to tackle cyclical events in the economy. Despite their lack of control, the Commander and Chief can set tone and direction. FDR and then Reagan changed the direction of the nation’s fiscal vision most drastically during the 20th century. Romney and Clinton most certainly have the same vision for a strong future American economy but their means to try and achieve that end will be drastically different.

The pundits have not been able to use past data to predict this election because well quite frankly 2008 is different than any previous election. I still believe the Democrats will have a major advantage come this November, but even if that is the case I see little reason why a voter should choose a Senator to fix the economy over a business man and turnaround artist.

Popularity: 44% [?]

I am not a big Anne Coulter fan but I couldn’t resist posting this article. What she expresses are a lot of the sentiments I have been harboring over the last few weeks and I think she speaks for a lot of conservatives who are disgusted by the disillusionment of many Republicans and the fact that they have ignored the only qualified candidate.

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The Elephant in the Room
By Ann CoulterUnluckily for McCain, snowstorms in Michigan suppressed the turnout among Democratic “Independents” who planned to screw up the Republican primary by voting for our worst candidate. Democrats are notoriously unreliable voters in bad weather. Instead of putting on galoshes and going to the polls, they sit on their porches waiting for FEMA to rescue them.

In contrast to Michigan’s foul weather, New Hampshire was balmy on primary day, allowing McCain’s base — Democrats — to come out and vote for him.

Assuming any actual Republicans are voting for McCain — or for liberals’ new favorite candidate for us, Mike Huckabee — this column is for you.

I’ve been casually taking swipes at Mitt Romney for the past year based on the assumption that, in the end, Republicans would choose him as our nominee. My thinking was that Romney would be our nominee because he is manifestly the best candidate.

I had no idea that Republican voters in Iowa and New Hampshire planned to do absolutely zero research on the candidates and vote on the basis of random impulses.

Dear Republicans: Please do one-tenth as much research before casting a vote in a presidential election as you do before buying a new car.

One clue that Romney is our strongest candidate is the fact that Democrats keep viciously attacking him while expressing their deep respect for Mike Huckabee and John McCain.

This point was already extensively covered in Chapter 1 of “How To Talk to a Liberal (If You Must)”: Never take advice from your political enemies.

Turn on any cable news show right now, and you will see Democratic pundits attacking Romney, calling him a “flip-flopper,” and heaping praise on McCain and Huckleberry — almost as if they were reading some sort of “talking points.”

Doesn’t that raise the tiniest suspicions in any of you? Are you too busy boning up on Consumer Reports’ reviews of microwave ovens to spend one day thinking about who should be the next leader of the free world? Are you familiar with our “no exchange/no return” policy on presidential candidates? Voting for McCain because he was a POW a quarter-century ago or Huckabee because he was a Baptist preacher is like buying a new car because you like the color.

The candidate Republicans should be clamoring for is the one liberals are feverishly denouncing. That is Mitt Romney by a landslide.

New York Times columnist Frank Rich says Romney “is trying to sell himself as a leader,” but he “is actually a follower and a panderer, as confirmed by his flip-flops on nearly every issue.”

But Rich is in a swoon over Huckabee. I haven’t seen Rich this excited since they announced “Hairspray” was coming to Broadway.

Rich has continued to hyperventilate over “populist” charmer Huckabee even after it came to light that Huckabee had called homosexuality an “abomination.” Normally, any aspersions on sodomy or any favorable mentions of Christianity would lead to at least a dozen hysterical columns by Frank Rich.

Rich treated Mel Gibson’s movie “The Passion of the Christ” as if it were a Leni Riefenstahl Nazi propaganda film. (On a whim, I checked to see if Rich had actually compared Gibson to Riefenstahl in one of his many “Passion” reviews and yes, of course he had.)

Curiously, however, Huckabee’s Christianity doesn’t bother Rich. In column after column, Rich hails Huckabee as the only legitimate leader of the Republican Party. This is like a girl in high school who hates you telling you your hair looks great.

Liberals claim to be enraged at Romney for being a “flip-flopper.” I’ve looked and looked, and the only issue I can find that Romney has “flipped” on is abortion. When running for office in Massachusetts — or, for short, “the Soviet Union” — Romney said that Massachusetts was a pro-choice state and that he would not seek to change laws on abortion.

Romney’s first race was against Sen. Teddy Kennedy — whom he came closer to beating than any Republican ever had. If Romney needed to quote “The Communist Manifesto” to take out that corpulent drunk, all men of good will would owe him a debt of gratitude.

Even when Romney was claiming to support Roe v. Wade, he won the endorsement of Massachusetts Citizens for Life — a group I trust more than the editorial board of The New York Times. Romney’s Democratic opponents always won the endorsements of the very same pro-choice groups now attacking him as a “flip-flopper.”

After his term as governor, NARAL Pro-Choice America assailed Romney, saying: “(A)s governor he initially expressed pro-choice beliefs but had a generally anti-choice record. His position on choice has changed. His position is now anti-choice.”

Pro-abortion groups like the Republican Majority for Choice — the evil doppelganger to my own group, Democratic Majority for Life — are now running videos attacking Romney for “flip-flopping” on abortion.

Of all the Republican candidates for president, Romney and Rudy Giuliani are the only ones who had to be elected in pro-choice districts. Romney governed as a pro-lifer and has been viciously attacked by pro-abortion groups.

By contrast, Giuliani cleverly avoids the heinous “flip-flopper” label by continuing to embrace baby-killing. (Rudy flip-flops only on trivial matters like illegal immigration and his own marital vows.)

And, of course, Romney is a Mormon. Even a loser Mormon like Sen. Harry Reid claims to be pro-life. So having a candidate with a wacky religion isn’t all bad.

At worst, Romney will turn out to be a moderate Republican — a high-IQ, articulate, moral, wildly successful, moderate Republican. Of the top five Republican candidates for president, Romney is the only one who hasn’t dumped his first wife (as well as the second, in the case of Giuliani) — except Huckabee. And unlike Huckabee, Romney doesn’t have a son who hanged a dog at summer camp. So there won’t be any intern issues and there won’t be any Billy Carter issues.

It’s also possible that Romney will turn out to be a conservative Republican — at least more conservative than he was as governor of Massachusetts. Whatever problems Romney’s Mormonism gives voters, remember: Bill Clinton came in third in heavily Mormon Utah in 1992.

Copyright 2008, Ann Coulter

Popularity: 16% [?]

Here’s what I am expecting for tonights results:

Clinton and Romney win Nevada’s caucuses

Huckabee erks one out over McCain in South Carolina’s primary

If this happens, things will simply be looking a little better for Clinton (who is still the overall frontrunner) going into next weeks Dem SC primary which should be tight (and probably favors Obama as of now).

On the GOP side, however, my scenario would make that race even more confusing, and reassert Florida as a toss-up primary and possibly a big swing state for the Republican nomination. It would also bring Rudy Giuliani into the thick of things in Florida.

If McCain can manage to pull it off in South Carolina, however, he can probably claim frontrunner status again, as he is already slightly ahead in Florida and National polls.

Romney’s decision to concentrate on Nevada is a safe, and probably wise, call. He is definitely still a prominant contender, and he appears to have support among much of the party faithful as he has been doing consistantly well among conservative Republicans in the early primaries and seems to be gaining favor among notable conservatives on the radio, such as Rush Limbaugh.

Stay tuned, tonight should be interesting.

Popularity: 25% [?]

Romney’s early state strategy has so far been something of a disaster. He lost Iowa and New Hampshire to both Huckabee and McCain, both of whom should be out of the race due to low funding.

Michigan is his last hope to gain momentum and try to force a rally. He currently is in a horserace for 1st amongst Republicans with Mccain and Huckabee. However, Michigan is interesting because it is an open primary, and because the Democrats have withdrawn all their delegates. In effect, Michigan is testing cross-party electibility.

There are some notable things, however, that can be quite altering.

For instance, Michigan is home to a HUGE student and Muslim population. These populations will tend to vote anti-war, such as Paul.

Michigan is also home of many large unions. Thus, the unions may support candidates that are more likely to give the aid, such as Huckabee.

Mccain has started to look bad after that South Carolina debate. However, his supporters will more likely go to Romney, but that will be very small.

All in all, if Romney cannot take Michigan, its effectively curtains for him.

Chou’s post was written prior to the Michigan primary and was not posted until afterwards.  The editors still feel as if his commentary is important, and the results of the Michigan primaries can be found online.

Popularity: 11% [?]

From his Economic View column in the NYT, Tyler Cowen writes:

There has been plenty of talk about “predatory lending,” but “predatory borrowing” may have been the bigger problem. As much as 70 percent of recent early payment defaults had fraudulent misrepresentations on their original loan applications, according to one recent study. The research was done by BasePoint Analytics, which helps banks and lenders identify fraudulent transactions; the study looked at more than three million loans from 1997 to 2006, with a majority from 2005 to 2006. Applications with misrepresentations were also five times as likely to go into default.

This fact, however, falls upon the deaf ears of the Democrats, all of who touched upon the issue in Tuesday’s Nevada debate:

Edwards said, “We need a national law cracking down on predatory and payday lenders that are taking advantage of our most vulnerable families.”

Clinton argued that, “…because of the way the interest rates are going up, and many of the fraudulent and predatory practices that got people into them in the first place…” we need to extend credit and loosen bankrupcy laws for those in trouble.

Obama agreed, “Hillary’s exactly right, but we’ve got to modify some of the fraudulent practices, predatory lending practices.”

It sounds wonderful to the economically illiterate, but this season’s buzzword–“predatory” lending–does not so much as pass the smell test. The fact is that the phenominan–if you can call it that–is easily explained by the price system. If the price of credit goes down, and lenders have access to a greater supply of funds then demand from consumers goes up as they are able to borrow more then they previously could. With more credit, consumers are able to buy higher end goods, which they otherwise wouldn’t have access to–such as homes–and the price for those goods grows.

In reality, neither the lenders nor borrowers were “predatory.” Each demanded more credit as credit became cheaper. Unfortunately for both, the credit bubble burst and they are suffering the consequences of unsustainable financing. But the fact remains, it makes no sense to call either party “predatory” considering they both got screwed. And I believe that is the point that Professor Cowen would ultimately make.

In the same column, Cown spoke on lethal cold fronts:

Spells of extreme cold kill over 27,000 Americans each year, or about 700 people each very cold day. Heat waves may receive more publicity, but it turns out that cold periods — days with an average temperature below 30 degrees —have more significant and longer-lasting effects on human mortality. More people die in cold periods than in homicides.

Extreme cold brings cardiovascular stress as human bodies struggle to adjust to the temperature; many of the deaths in these periods come through heart attacks. Heat waves tend to kill people who were already weakened and would have died soon anyway; cold periods bring additional people to the verge of death.

When retired people move to a warmer state, their life expectancy rises dramatically. In fact, 8 to 15 percent of the increase in American life expectancy over the last 30 years comes from people moving to warmer climates, according to research done by two economics professors, Olivier Deschenes at the University of California, Santa Barbara, and Enrico Moretti, at the University of California, Berkeley.

Much is made of how a warming trend could hurt us, but, not only do I assume that those are under the most severe of scenarios, not much is made of if and how warming can help. Not only do many more humans die from the cold than from the heat, but productivity also flurishes when it is warmer. For instance estimates generally hover around the consensus that warming and greater CO2 has contributed to a 15% growth in crop yields since 1950.

This wisdom regarding warming is certainly unconventional, but it is worth discussing openly. I believe the reason we never hear about it is that global warming skepticism is strongly condemned by the mainstream.

Popularity: 44% [?]

With less than 10% of the precincts reporting, the Michigan primary was called for Mitt Romney. As of now it looks like McCain will finish second, followed by Huckabee, and Ron Paul in fourth.

With many viewing McCain as the frontrunner coming into MI, this is evidence that Republicans remain uncommitted to any candidate. This being said, I am not at all surprised by the outcome in Michigan.

This race is a complete crap shoot. I would look for Huckabee to win South Carolina. I don’t know what will happen in Nevada, although I doubt it matters. Florida is really a total tossup at this point, which is why the eventual winner there may be a good indicator of who will be the nominee.

Then again, I could be wrong…

Popularity: 25% [?]

Unfortunately, most politicians don’t have much of an economic pedigree, but some at least think more like economists than others. My inclination is that Obama fits the bill among Democrats, although all the talk of “taking on the drug companies,” “predatory lending,” the illusions to protectionism, etc. is enough to conclude that the Democrats are not really to be trusted on big economic issues in general.

Many of the Republicans leave a lot to be desired also, but some do make sense from time to time. The South Carolina debate on Thursday night demonstrates this.

I think among Republicans, Ron Paul and John McCain tend to distinguish themselves. Ron Paul, I believe, has consistently established himself as the most economically-minded of candidates although he is out of the mainstream. Perhaps I am partial to him because he is reads von Mises, Rothbard, and Hayek, however any politician who actually takes the time to read treatises on economics by such thinkers deserves credit.

He also deserves credit for putting the immigration issue into an economic context which none of the other candidates seem think of–ever. Here was his response to an immigration question:

I think this whole thing should be thought of more in economic terms. Maybe I think about economics too much. But there is something said in economics that, if you subsidize something, you get more of it.

And this is what we do. We encourage it by giving free medical care, and free education, and the promise of amnesty. And no wonder more will come.

We have a weakening economy and now immigrants, especially the illegals, are seen as a threat because they come and they undermine our tax system. And some of our hospitals are being closed and some of our people won’t work because of the welfare state.

You can’t solve this problem if you don’t deal with the terms of welfarism. And, besides, you know, some of our border guards are over in Iraq. I think they would be better off on our borders, you know, protecting our borders, not in Iraq.

Immigration is one of the issues on which I disagree to a certain extent with Rep. Paul–I think that immigration laws should be very lax–but he is right with regard to the welfare aspect of it, which must be curtailed. Most of all, he deserves pops for observing that immigration is fundamentally an economic phenomenon, and to analyze any economic phenomenon you must look at incentives.

Zach may be right that Ron Paul sounds about as confusing to the average voter as Sean Paul sounds to–well–me, but at least he speaks in a more rational and candid manner–something which I would rarely accuse the other candidates of doing.

John McCain also made some sense in the debate with regard for the potential recession (especially with regard to the loss of manufacturing jobs in Michigan, which has the next primary):

Well, the first thing we need to do is stop the out-of- control spending. Out-of-control spending is what caused the interest rates to rise. It causes people to be less able to afford to own their own homes.

We need to stop the spending. And that way we can get our budget under control and we can have a — basically a strong, fundamental fiscal underpinnings.

The second thing that we need to do, of course, is stop spending $400 billion a year overseas to oil-producing countries that come right out of our economy immediately. Some of that money goes, unfortunately, to fund terrorist organizations.

We’ve got to — and we can use Detroit for this, where there’s tremendous technology in the state of Michigan, and tremendous abilities to develop technologies to reduce this dependency on foreign oil, and eventually eliminate it, and stop this outflow of some $400 billion a year. Education and training is obviously important, but stop the spending. As president, I know how to do it. I’ll wield that veto pen, and I won’t let another pork-barrel earmark spending bill cross my desk without vetoing it. And I’ll make the authors of it famous.

It was generally a good statement because its theme was that spending more than you have is bad for the economy. Hence, hes giving an economic–not a political (i.e. “deficit” sounds bad, so lets stop it)–reason to tighten fiscal policy, and eliminate the deficit. He also deserves high marks for alluding to the price system and how more spending means less savings and higher interest rates.

His comment on foreign oil was not so good, however. His claim about the $400 billion spent on foreign oil does not compute. Even if we stopped spending that money on foreign oil altogether, we would still have an unfulfilled $400 billion dollar demand for energy. Where would we get it? Its not like “alternative” energies can provide us with nearly the same energy for the same cost.

Additionally, if we stop spending on Middle Eastern oil it wont really hurt those producer–at least, not nearly as much as it will hurt us economically. The oil market is a global market, and if we remove our demand from the marketplace, the price will immediately go down, but that will cause demand from elsewhere to rise and the price to rise, although not quite as high as original levels. The US on the other hand will be spending its energy dollars elsewhere, which will make non-MidEastern energy more expensive and, again, shift spending from the rest of the world back to Middle Eastern oil to off-set the imbalance.

Among the other candidates, there wasn’t much to write home about. Thompson and Giuliani, who have both proposed similar tax cuts, which they insisted would also raise revenue. This is not necessarily true as it is difficult to tell where we are on the Laffer Curve and how much it applies. Additionally, their saying that spending need not be cut reminds me of the Bush deficits.

Mitt Romney kind of surprises me. I see him posturing for public opinion on economic issues more than I hear him making sense–for instance, he was making an obvious appeal to MI voters on the recession question when he talked about how he “created jobs” as Governor. I expect more from such a successful executive and investor.

I have little evidence that Mike Huckabee speaks economics.

Lastly, the Wall Street Journal recently conducted a survey of economists regarding everything from the future of the economy to the presidential race.

when asked their personal preference, the economists favored Republicans. Sen. McCain led the field with 39% of the forecasters’ votes, compared with 11% for Mr. Giuliani and 7% for former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney. Among Democrats, Sen. Obama edged Sen. Clinton, 14% to 11%, while former North Carolina Sen. John Edwards took 4%.

“People are looking for change,” said Susan Sterne of Economic Analysis.

Some 56% of the economists disapproved of President Bush’s stewardship of the economy, while 44% approved. That is especially startling considering 59% of the economists said the stock market performs better under Republican presidents, compared with 28% who said it favored Democrats. Most economists who disapproved of Mr. Bush cited an increase in government spending. Many praised the president’s tax cuts.

The economists polled, as I understand, were generally mainstream ones which is probably one reason why they tended towards mainstream candidates, especially moderate conservatives. McCain led the field by a lot, which suggests that he does sound good on economic issues as I suggested. Ron Paul apparently doesn’t register, which isn’t a surprise because he is so radical, but is disappointing nevertheless.

Popularity: 62% [?]