30 responses so far ↓

• 1 Is That Good? // Feb 1, 2010 at 1:16 pm

  Every time Root “promotes” the LP, it’s with his face on it.

  Were I a voter who’s first impression of the LP was Root, I’d be certain not to vote LP.

• 2 Nate // Feb 1, 2010 at 1:31 pm

  I agree.

  On the other hand I think there are many who would probably consider Root-Libertarianism as an alternative much quicker than Pure-Libertarianism or Left-Libertarianism.

  But I think you said it all with “Is That Good?” – I, for one, really don’t know. I can see both positives and negatives. I think, however, that the question really shouldn’t be whether it’s good or not, there isn’t really any decent way to change it now. Focus rather on making it good, attracting Left-Libs to counter the surge, appreciating the growth in membership (if indeed it leads to that), and/or leave the party and find/form one that better suits you.

• 3 Yes. on Wayne // Feb 1, 2010 at 4:09 pm

  It will be because of WAYNE ALLY ROOT that this party will get where it should have been years ago. Something that a lot of people have not done.

• 4 Thane Eichenauer // Feb 1, 2010 at 4:57 pm

  @1
  Wayne Allyn Root appears on TV and he can hardly use anybody else’s face. If his face can give me more freedom then maybe I should use face.

• 5 Tom Blanton // Feb 1, 2010 at 6:36 pm

  Yes. on Wayne @ #3 writes:

  “It will be because of WAYNE ALLY ROOT that this party will get where it should have been years ago. Something that a lot of people have not done.”

  Ten years ago it was Neal Boortz, two years ago it was Bob Barr, and now it is Mr. Root that will put the LP in the big leagues. Yet, the LP is smaller and less relevant than it was 10 years ago.

  Perhaps it is not conservatives that will do whatever it is that conservatives and reformers think they will do, which is make the LP win elections. Third parties don’t win elections in America. Period.

  If anyone truly thinks that Root going on talk radio whining about how Obama is a liar will bring them freedom or elect libertarians, they aren’t playing with a full deck.

• 6 Sorry your wrong // Feb 1, 2010 at 7:53 pm

  Ten years ago it was Neal Boortz, two years ago it was Bob Barr, and now it is Mr. Root that will put the LP in the big leagues. Yet, the LP is smaller and less relevant than it was 10 years ago.

  No Wayne Root is bigger than both of these people in every which way. No the LP IS NOT SMALLER. They have got a lot more people joining as well as money donation. So say what you will.

• 7 NewFederalist // Feb 1, 2010 at 7:59 pm

  If only Root wasn’t such a used car salesman AND actually understood what libertarianism is he would be great!

• 8 Michael H. Wilson // Feb 1, 2010 at 8:16 pm

  It might also help if he knew and would clearly state what the Libertarian solution would be or is instead of just bashing the other guy.

• 9 Mik Robertson // Feb 1, 2010 at 9:09 pm

  I agree that you cannot get far with just a negative message. The key is to get people outside of the two-party box. It doesn’t matter how or if they are headed in exactly the right direction. It is much easier to change the course of a ship when it is moving. If the bulk of the voting public just sits in that two-party box, nothing will substantially change. Maybe Wayne can help pull them out.

• 10 George Phillies // Feb 1, 2010 at 10:12 pm

  @6

  LNC Income is available on the internet at FEC.GOV as a disclosure to the FEC.

  LNC Income is falling like a rick, namely over the last decade by 12%/year in nominal dollars and 15%/year in real dollars.

  I have the graphs in an article here

  http://www.independentpoliticalreport.com/2010/01/george-phillies-our-good-ship-liberty-needs-to-change-course/

  where it is very apparent that we need drastic changes or soon the LNC will founder.

  Membership numbers are even worse than financials; you can read those on the New Path page at LibertyForAmerica dot com.

  (apologies, but ipr spam traps would block the second URL.)

• 11 paulie // Feb 1, 2010 at 11:22 pm

  No the LP IS NOT SMALLER. They have got a lot more people joining as well as money donation.

  What info sources are you using on this? Not the ones I’ve seen, I’m sorry to say.

• 12 Austin Battenberg // Feb 2, 2010 at 12:16 am

  Root needs to stop praising Reagan. Really, he wasn’t a good president. If he keeps praising Reagan, independents and potential left leaning libertarians would be turned off by Root as they would see yet another right winger. And a hypocryte.

• 13 Steve LaBianca // Feb 2, 2010 at 12:39 am

  W.A.R. has stated (I heard him personally) within the last year, that;
  1-WWII was a GOOD war;
  2-If the LP is for ending laws against all drugs, then he may be in the wrong party;
  3-he supports militarily remaining in the middle east
  and appeared on many conservative talk shows, bashing “liberals”;

  How can there be any doubt that W.A.R. is anything but a neoconservative-trying to reshape the Libertarian Party into that neocon mold.

• 14 Vaughn // Feb 2, 2010 at 1:26 pm

  I’m sure the Outright Libertarians aren’t fans of Reagan’s social policies.

• 15 Solomon Drek // Feb 2, 2010 at 2:29 pm

  Root is a self-serving snake-oil salesman who is using the LP as a marketing tool to promote his own career and feed his massive ego.

  It’s too bad the LP, a party I used to have some respect for as the “Party of Principle, will prostitute itself once again to another “celebrity” candidate in a vain attempt to gain respectability. Each time it does, however, it becomes less respectable as the latest election results show.

  I’m sure Wayne Root is just megalomaniacal enough to believe that by resurrecting himself as the second coming of Ronald Reagan he can transform the LP into the 21st century version of the 1964 GOP. However, I doubt he’ll succeed any more than Barry Goldwater.

• 16 Aroundtheblockafewtimes // Feb 2, 2010 at 5:47 pm

  Don’t know about Root, but I do know that the LP needs a chair with charisma and exciting rhetorical skills to take the Party’s message to outsiders instead of the relatively colorless, paper shuffling chairs they’ve always gone with in the past.

• 17 Thomas L. Knapp // Feb 2, 2010 at 6:05 pm

  Aroundtheblockafewtimes,

  Why do you think that the role of chair is to “take the party’s message to outsiders?”

  The chair’s job is to preside at meetings of the LNC and to serve as CEO of the party as that role relates to its administrative and other nuts-and-bolts aspects.

  Charisma and rhetorical skill aren’t negatives in a chair, but neither are they anything resembling requirements in a chair.

• 18 Bruce Cohen // Feb 2, 2010 at 6:08 pm

  Whoops, he ended up being on SIX times yesterday, all on large market radio.

  And you know what?

  I bet the man tried to sell some books, too.

  He also uses the word “Libertarian” or “Libertarian Party” like 20 times per show.

  And he’s:
  Nice
  Friendly
  Likeable
  Straightforward

  He doesn’t get into the minutia or food fights, he keeps it simple to things I would think about any Libertarian would agree with.

  So why the kerfuffle?
  Wayne is a nice ‘boy scout’ with a big family who speaks well and cleans up nicely.

  We could use more of that.

• 19 Harlequin // Feb 2, 2010 at 6:26 pm

  So, if he’s a “boy scout,” does that mean he was touched by…. ? Ah, nevermind.

• 20 @SOLOMON // Feb 2, 2010 at 6:38 pm

  Can you do better, otherwise shut your fat ugly mouth and sit in the corner somewhere.

• 21 Bruce Cohen // Feb 2, 2010 at 6:43 pm

  Hey for all you ‘left Libertarians’ out there disparaging Wayne Root on this thread… (Whatever that term means, left whatever, I’m a Libertarian-American, no left or right)

  Wayne was on major radio again today.
  I guess I could start another post again, but whatever, I just was saying…

  Yep, he was on the major leftie show, The Thom Hartmann Show today. (Sue me if I misspelled it, Holtz.)

  And what was the dastardly evil conspiring horrible awful mean Wayne Allyn Root (WAR) doing there besides selling a couple of books to pay the bills ’cause everyone needs a job?

  Yeah, you guessed it:
  Getting the free market capitalist LP message out.

  Thank you.

• 22 Brian Holtz // Feb 2, 2010 at 7:41 pm

  Sure, Cohen, keep pretending that a mis-spelling is in the same league as falsely calling a convict a “rapist”, or calling someone an “embezzler” without providing substantiation.

  If a Tom Sipos says Root has “raped” his shareholders, or says without substantiation that Root is an “embezzler”, you’ll have no moral grounds on which to complain.

  But I bet you still will.

• 23 Bruce Cohen // Feb 2, 2010 at 9:26 pm

  Only Brian can be sarcastic or try to tease someone. Brian is more equal as to the laws of humor.

  And as far as your moral equivalence argument, the things are of different orders of magnitude, and that’s just common sense.

  Aye noe yew gotz aye cohlej ejukashun.

  And I’m just the tough kid from the continuation high school, but logic, ethics and philosophy class are over, Brian.

  Get over yourself.
  Your mirror is getting tired of you gloating you’re alive.

• 24 Brian Holtz // Feb 2, 2010 at 10:39 pm

  If you don’t want me to refer to your history of dishonesty and prima facie libel , then don’t make references to my practice of diagnosing it.

• 25 Martin // Feb 3, 2010 at 1:20 am

  ROOT = DOOSH

• 26 Tom Blanton // Feb 3, 2010 at 2:07 am

  This person, “Sorry your wrong”, is a perfect example of the Rootification of libertaria.

  This is the mindset of the talk radio zombies that Root will lead into the LP straight out of Glenn Beck’s tea baggers movement against Marxist Presidents Born In Kenya Who Want The Terrorists To Win.

  Foolish opinions replace facts and reality becomes a parody. Ahh, but this time, Root will lead the LP into an orgasmic frenzy of patriotism and save America from the evil Obama.

  Wrapped in a flag and clutching the Constitution, Root’s shining teeth will illuminate the path of those who weep for the freedom of tax cuts to the door of the LP. Millions will come and all will be good as God smiles down upon the republic as we fondle our guns and gamble away our tax cuts – oh yeah, and read Wayne’s latest book.

• 27 Brian Holtz // Feb 3, 2010 at 2:34 am

  Here’s the message that Wayne Root needs to keep repeating. Root’s segment starts at 2m00s into the video.

• 28 Robert Capozzi // Feb 3, 2010 at 7:52 am

  Root’s speech was pretty good. I’d suggest he lose the Blues Brothers look, though.

• 29 Aroundtheblockafewtimes // Feb 3, 2010 at 9:21 am

  Tom #17, I don’t think it’s “the” role, but it should be “a” role. Sure, the Chair has to be a good CEO, administrator, etc. And we’ve had those kind of chairs in the past. But we haven’t yet found one to do both. Wouldn’t be it nice to have one? If the Chair isn’t taking the message to outsiders, then who is? The last presidential candidate? The Exec. Director?

• 30 Thomas L. Knapp // Feb 3, 2010 at 10:20 am

  Aroundtheblockafewtimes,

  You write:

  “If the Chair isn’t taking the message to outsiders, then who is? The last presidential candidate? The Exec. Director?”

  Ideally, everyone.

  The most recent presidential candidate.

  All the current candidates for office.

  All the elected and appointed officeholders.

  All the activists.

  I don’t have any problem with a charismatic chair who can, given the opportunity, hold his own on the talking head shows or whatever.

  But I consider it a very subsidiary role — it’s something other people can do and can be called upon to do.

  I’d rather have a competent CEO who’s better off farming out public speaking duties than a great speaker who can’t competently run the business end of the party.

  Of course, I find Root wanting on both counts anyway, but your mileage may vary.

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