Comments on: Reason’s Weigel covers Barr-Root election party

By: Jake Witmer

Jake Witmer — Mon, 09 Feb 2009 07:32:25 +0000

I think Wayne has gotten a bunch of bad breaks with people tending to focus on how they disagree with him, rather than how they agree with him. There is a natural tendency for those in the LP to sacrifice the good to the perfect. After all, winning elections isn’t as important to them as ideological consistency, otherwise they would simply be trying to infiltrate the major parties (like Ron Paul did).

Take a look at all the work Wayne is doing for the LP. Noone has been on TV and radio as often, or as vocally as Wayne has. He’s been on Fox almost every week since the election, touting the Libertarian solution to the “bailout”. “Destroy the Fed, Before It Destroys Us!”

Does he have a little bit to learn about promoting the LP brand to leftists? Sure. …Nobody’s perfect. (None of our prior presidential candidates were either.)

But Wayne has constantly grown, constantly learned, and constantly progressed in his thinking. He also champions fully informed juries, which is a huge plus with me, because it means that even if he isn’t elected, he is helping to minimize the damage caused by the State to innocent lives.

Just my .02

-Jake Witmer

Wayne Root Speaks Out Against the Federal Reserve System on Fox Business (1/16/2009)

By: Michael Gilson-De Lemos

Michael Gilson-De Lemos — Mon, 10 Nov 2008 15:28:45 +0000

“If Monds could win more than 25 percent of the vote, that would mean he received more votes than any Libertarian candidate in any U.S. election, ever ..”

As opposed to the untrained paper candidates fa vored by the US LP (which certainly have a place, though a diminishing one) trained Libertarians are now regularly doing better that that, and many being elected.

This sort of misinformation is not helpful.

By: Denver Delegate

Denver Delegate — Mon, 10 Nov 2008 04:33:10 +0000

Where were Root’s “constituencies” — the gamblers and the home-schoolers — he was supposed to deliver?

Gotta be more than 0.5M of those folks.

By: paulie cannoli

paulie cannoli — Mon, 10 Nov 2008 02:41:45 +0000

Well, there you go; you didn’t have to wait for the LP to nominate Wayne.

By: VTV

VTV — Mon, 10 Nov 2008 02:39:55 +0000

Actually I am part of the national commitee of the BTP.

By: paulie cannoli

paulie cannoli — Mon, 10 Nov 2008 02:37:04 +0000

http://www.bostontea.us/

The price is right….

By: VTV

VTV — Mon, 10 Nov 2008 02:35:39 +0000

If our party is stupid enough to nominate Root in 2012 I will probably be shopping for another party again.

By: joeydauben

joeydauben — Mon, 10 Nov 2008 02:06:08 +0000

I bought WAR2012.com and am willing to have it created and dolled-up if anyone would like to contribute graphic design stuff to it …

I’m not sure what to think about Bruce Cohen, but as someone who supported WAR in the very beginning — back when Eric Dondero started touting him — AND Bob Barr — I want to help unify our ticket for 2012, but hey, guys, let’s use 2008 as a serious effort to build a grassroots network. I know it can be done, as in the case of Wes Benedict and the Travis County LP in my home state, but where are the solid towns that we are aiming for?

I’m all for national tickets, but until we can show some local county activism, people will not pay any attention to us in four years…

By: bsharitt

bsharitt — Sun, 09 Nov 2008 22:09:55 +0000

I’d like to see Barr run for Congress or the Sentate as a Libertarian here soon.

By: paulie cannoli

paulie cannoli — Sun, 09 Nov 2008 18:57:27 +0000

Yes, it was in my phone too.

And, yes, I feel dumb.

By: Eternaverse

Eternaverse — Sun, 09 Nov 2008 18:56:53 +0000

From Waynes website: (702) 407-5548

By: paulie cannoli

paulie cannoli — Sun, 09 Nov 2008 18:52:32 +0000

I have his card somewhere, but it’s not in my wallet. I’ll shoot it to you if I find it later. I think Knapp has it, too.

By: JimDavidson

JimDavidson — Sun, 09 Nov 2008 18:47:55 +0000

I’d be willing to call Root. Do you have his phone number? You have my e-mail address.

By: paulie cannoli

paulie cannoli — Sun, 09 Nov 2008 17:19:32 +0000

Open question to IPR bloggers, and not limited to Barr, Root or for that matter the LP.

By: Thomas M. Sipos

Thomas M. Sipos — Sun, 09 Nov 2008 17:17:51 +0000

Interview them? I hope I never have to see or hear from them!

By: paulie cannoli

paulie cannoli — Sun, 09 Nov 2008 16:30:51 +0000

Anyone feel like trying to get exit interviews with Barr, Root, or for that matter the other ex-candidates?

By: Thomas M. Sipos

Thomas M. Sipos — Sun, 09 Nov 2008 16:06:51 +0000

Hmmm, didn’t mean to boldface all of that.

By: Thomas M. Sipos

Thomas M. Sipos — Sun, 09 Nov 2008 16:06:14 +0000

The Monday before Election Day

It seems that Bruce Cohen, an early Root supporter, is trying to blame Barr alone for the Barr/Root ticket’s poor showing, in preparation for Root’s 2012 run.

Cohen blames the Barr campaign, claiming that Root is “the future of the LP on the national level,” and that Root is a much better candidate than Barr.

See Cohen’s posts: http://getbruce.blogspot.com/2008/11/whats-cure-for-election-poisoning.html

and http://getbruce.blogspot.com/2008/11/root-versus-palin-smearing-vp.html

Cohen is pro-war (he prefers the term “pro-defense”) and was voted out as Orange County LP chair in 2007 by a 2:1 margin.

He also campaigned for California LP state chair in 2007, but pulled out before the race. Presumably because he saw he couldn’t win.

I suspect that, since losing his titles, Cohen has been trying to get back into the LP limelight, and had hoped to ride Root’s coattails to national prominence

Cohen’s posts are interesting in that they show how the Root clique will spin Root’s poor performance (having promised at least 2 million votes, and instead staying within the usual LP vote levels). They’ll blame it all on Barr.

It will be interesting to see how the Barr and Root cliques act in the coming months. They weren’t too friendly at the convention, and it was always a marriage of convenience.

By: paulie cannoli

paulie cannoli — Sun, 09 Nov 2008 15:42:11 +0000

He had bet, publicly, that McCain would win the election.

Unless this was in Atlanta on Tuesday or some other recent utterance I am not aware of, what this is referring to is an article where Root predicted that a McCain-Lieberman ticket would win big and establish the NSGOP as the dominant party for decades.

Watch for the following spin to come out of the Barr-Root camp: the Barr-Root ticket scared McCain into dumping Lieberman and picking Palin, who ended up costing McCain the election.

On the other hand, I think McCain would have lost regardless of who his VP was. The fundamental issue was the economy, and the secondary issue was that Obama was a good campaigner and McCain was a poor one. Palin was, and Lieberman would have been, a distraction at most.

But, it is certainly possible that the Barr-Root ticket played a role in Palin’s selection. Newt Gingrich predicted that if Lieberman was on the ticket with McCain, Barr would get 15%. He may not have been the only NSGOP strategist who considered heading off the Libertarians at the pass to be important. Reports are that McCain was set to pick Lieberman until party leaders prevailed on him not to.