Yes he was and he admits that freely and he would have remained on if he hadn't educated himself and the thing that turned him was working in the labor department that gathers data and then advise's the congress and president on the what should be the rate of minimum wage. He then realized that that department was a waste of money and that without it and he assumed many more "correctly" then all that waste on the departments could be removed lowering the taxes would drop and they wouldn't need a minimum wage or let congress talk about it or call in actual experts. Besides his naive free trade idea's that require a democrat paid off tool is not in office, then he kind of reminds me of Trump.