Mike Huckabee is a potential Republican nominee for the US presidential elections next November. “Who’s your favorite author?” asked 7-year old Aleya Deatsch. Huckabee said it was Dr Seuss. That surprised her because she thought that someone grownup should be reading at a higher level. Her favorite author she admitted was C. S. Lewis.

Huckabee is not the sharpest knife in the drawer, evidently. Here’s what he said on record: “I think we ought to be out there talking about ways to reduce energy consumption and waste. And we ought to declare that we will be free of energy consumption in this country within a decade, bold as that is.” [Via Cosmic Variance.]

Perhaps he meant “free of energy waste”. But who knows. Perhaps he is not stupid, only plays stupid so that he can win the approval of the majority of the Republicans. I am told that Lallu Prasad Yadav is a very sharp guy but likes to play the simpleton to appeal to his voter base.

My working hypothesis is that politicians are really reflections of the general characteristic of the population. It is only rarely through some historical accident that someone who is un-representative of the population leads the nation out of its predictable path. In general, leadership is endogenous. It is a depressing hypothesis.