United Liberty
Wayne Root leaves Libertarian Party, backs Romney
Thu, 09/06/2012 - 1:17pm | posted by Jason Pye
Wayne Allyn Root, 2008 Libertarian Party’s Vice Presidential nominee and political commentator, resigned this morning from the Libertarian National Committee (LNC) to, according to his resignation letter, “elect good people and change the direction of this country outside of a third party.”
In the letter to the LNC, which is available at Independent Political Report, Root explains that his decision much is not unlike those of previous Libertarian Party presidential candidates, including Ron Paul and David Koch; both of whom left the LP to become prominent Republicans.
When I asked if he was now backing Mitt Romney, Root responded, “I am,” adding, “I don’t deny that Romney and Ryan aren’t libertarians, but Romney is a pro-business capitalist and Obama is a Marxist-socialist.”
“The economy has been trashed. This is about my kids’ future, it’s about my businesses,” said Root. “There is no hope for America if Obama is re-elected.”
Root, who lives near Las Vegas, noted in his resignation letter that he “plan[s] to join Tea Party U.S. Senators like Rand Paul, Jim DeMint, Marco Rubio and Mike Lee in the near future, representing the great state of Nevada.” It’s obviously too late for him to run this year. It would 2016 before Root could make a run, presumably against Sen. Harry Reid; though Root told me that he believes the Democratic leader will retire.
Bob Barr, a former Republican Congressman from Georgia and the 2008 Libertarian Party’s presidential nominee, backed Newt Gingrich during the GOP primary. Barr has indicated that he will support Romney in 2012.
Disclosure: I served as campaign blogger for Barr/Root in 2008.
Wayne Root is a defector. He ran out of money and got a big payout loan from a Mormon GOP’er to go Romney. While Root’s attacks on Obama have been fair game, throwing his support behind Romney when Root should be supporting the liberty candidate Gary Johnson is such a turn-coat move that I am left with a sick feeling.
Wayne Allyn Root is only in this game for one thing, Wayne Allyn Root. He clearly thinks he has a shot at gaining influence in the Nevada GOP, that’s my theory. Given that they’ve been insane enough to nominate Sharron Angle in the past, he may just be right about that.
In Libertarian Party-land what you’ve just said is an endorsement - “virtue of selfishness” and all that stuff, remember?
Oh, you mean like Ron Paul? The guy who rode the GOP train for this election year.
Are all current-nuoveau Libertarians as hypocritical as the voices on this page?
Do you honestly think people will follow small mindedness and apparent hypocrisy?
This grand country needs vision and a well-rounded view.
We need small government, low taxes, freedoms returned and an economy that is pro-growth/pro-jobs.
The thought process on this page is frightening. You are in lock step (like stepford wives) and you are giving a man God status. You are so stuck in a cultist phase you bow at the feet of Paul refusing to see the cracks in the pedestal.
That behavior is no better than the ObamaBots.
TRUE Libertarians - the ones who were foundational for this party - would run from you cultists in a heartbeat.
You preach freedom - yet you are chained together in a cultist mindset with pre-fed commentaries to preach to others. You do not listen - you pontificate.
You turn everyone off from your cause and that is not the way to gain a voice. It is a way to minimize and eventually lead to a disappearance of your party.
If you want to gain respect for your party and if you want to grow your party - alienating everyone is not the pathway.
Stand back and think about it. Think about how YOU react when people pontificate to you.
We are ALL Americans who once upon a time were United.
Yet, you all want to join with the Leftists and cause a Division of this great country. You want to see her in chains as you plot to continue stomping your feet, throwing temper tantrums, sulking, pouting and refusing to look at the big picture.
But hey - go ahead. Ruin the Libertarian party. It will hurt you - not the rest of us. YOU will be ostracized and belittled.
The founders hard work will be for naught.
Dolphie, you are my hero! I could not have said it any better. HERE HERE! Another voice of reason gives me hope.
Smart people defect when what they’ve been doing makes no sense. Blind ideologues keep fuming and spitting at the wind because the world won’t do what they want it to do.
The man doesn’t want 4 more years of Obama, and 50 more years of Obama’s Supreme Court. Better to vote for the lesser of two evils than the lesser of three evils, when the third one has no chance of winning.
Adapt to reality.
Really? Any vote for anyone else, including Gary Johnson or Ron Paul (ugh) is a vote for Obama.
Is that what you want?
ANYTHING TO DEFEAT THE SCHIZOPHRENIC PSYCHOPATH REID, has my approval.
Root is awful. I’m fairly sure my fellow Ron Paul supporters in Nevada are fully aware of that.
….?
So Ron Paul, who is registered Republican and runs for office as a Republican, deserves your support… but Root, who has changed his registration to Republican and may run for office as a Republican at some future date, is an awful person?
Your reasoning is inscrutable.
Thank God he has left the LP. As an LP delegate and a professional business woman - Wayne Allen Root is a self-serving publicity whore. He did no good to the LP but to personally promote himself. If he was a REAL Libertarian, he would be endorsing the BEST candidate we have EVER had - Governor Gary Johnson. As Gov Johnson climbs in popularity, I do have to wonder if Root, broke and under pressure from the IRS - took a pay-off from Mormons to endorse Romney? Either way - good riddance…
Root was no Libertarian. He was using the LP as a stage for personal gain. He was easy pickin’s for the Romney team, who, alarmed at the growing popularity of Gary Johnson in Nevada, bought off Root to pitch for Romney. What the hell was Root doing supporting Romney while in the Libertarian Party anyway? I’m glad he’s gone.
Follow the money! Why leave the cause you believe in now? Gary Johnson was quickly gaining popularity in Nevada…Wayne Allyn Root was never a libertarian anyways so he was easy to buy off. He took a million dollar loan from a Mormon Republican and in exchange he is now supporting Romney. Its a good deal…he is also going to get more attention and gain influence in the Nevada GOP.
Someone got bought off. IDK the “who/what/where/when”. But, I know “why”: its going to be a close election and Gary Johnson is getting support in Wayne Allyn Root’s home state.
These are indeed odd times ….
http://www.libertasforum.com/ron-paul-wayne-allen-root-and-gary-johnson….
Every now and then a prominent Libertarian demonstrates a realization that they have figured out how politics actually works. Naturally the remaining Libertarians go into a feeding frenzy because to them it’s still all about ideological purity.
Sigh. What a waste.
Good move by Wayne Root. Paul Ryan is a libertarian! He has the legislative plans that Romney will enact. When it comes to the Presidential election, only one of two men will be elected. Romney / Ryan share 85% of the common ground with libertarians. Let’s take 85% versus 5%. As Obama says, math.
Wayne Allyn Root is a disgrace, and a perfect example of how politics really works. So Root decides 2 months before the election to suddenly switch parties, when he had all year to follow Mitt Romney and make a decision. Looks like Romney has paid off Root, coincidentally when Gary Johnson’s popularity in Nevada is on the rise!
This is hardly surprising news. Root has been saying unhelpful (from a Libertarian perspective) things for a while, now. Root has made himself persona non grata with many within the LP. Gov. Gary Johnson seemed to feel loyalty to Root, who, other than his occasional generally unhelpful comment, has been good to Johnson. Gov. Johnson is just a nice guy and a loyal friend. But Root had become so unpopular within the LP, that I sensed Johnson’s reluctance to throw Root under the bus was starting to hurt Gov. Johnson. Therefor, as a Johnson supporter, I’m glad that Root has done what has seemed inevitable for a while, now, and finally left the LP. Now Roots remaining friends within the LP won’t be left defending him, or at least they won’t have to defend his proper place *within* the party.
Thank you, Sir, for caring more about this great country than ego or party. George Washington warned us about placing party before country and unfortunately, I see some who would rather put ego and party before this great country.
I realize it is not an easy decision. Yet, you will gain my support and that of others for your realize a Businessman is needed to turn around the mess that the current administration has created.
There is so very much to unravel. There is so little time to unravel it.
Thank you again Sir, for your courage and long term vision.
So, for those big ‘L’ libertarians among you:
Who is your ideologically pure candidate who can both be actually elected, in this term, and who can immediately implement the governmental changes you aspire to?
Oh, you don’t actually have one. Imagine that.
I liken the average big ‘L’ libertarian to the members of the panel on Monty Pythons’ ‘Spot the Looney.’ (Yes, contestant Sheila is correct, they’re all loonies).
For you, the perfect is the enemy of the good. If you can’t have it all right now, you’d rather let the candidate most opposed to freedom have the job (God forbid that someone with at least some of the right ideas might get elected).
Dolphie @ 2:28 is right.
You value ideological purity more than you value freedom (and how is that any different than the party politicians you rail against?).
You’d rather have none of the freedoms you claim to support, if the alternative is to only have some of them to start with.
It took a lot of small (and some not so small) steps to get where we are now. Like it or not, it’s going to take a lot of small steps to get us where we want to go.
No matter how you may wish it to be otherwise, those of us in the real world know we’re only going to get either Romney or Obama when the chips fall.
Neither is ideal. But Obama is worse. Let’s choose to move (however small the steps may be) away from ‘we all belong to the government.’
I’m a small ‘l’ libertarian. I favor classical liberalism and the intentions of our founding fathers and the constitution they adopted. I believe in individual freedom and small government. What I am not, however, is naive enough to believe that we can present some kind of avatar of the ‘perfect libertarian’ who will axiomatically get elected (regardless of the political reality) and who will then magically change the world by fiat.
Instead of wishing for the genie of the lamp to give you the society you wish for, maybe you could start living in the one we have, and start doing what is actually possible to move in the direction we’re trying to achieve.
I don’t care what party the guy goes too. He is still right on this one thing
“I don’t deny that Romney and Ryan aren’t libertarians, but Romney is a pro-business capitalist and Obama is a Marxist-socialist. The economy has been trashed. This is about my kids’ future, it’s about my businesses,” said Root. “There is no hope for America if Obama is re-elected.”
The Marxist must be defeated.
I used to be in the libertarian party, but got tired of everybody congradulating each other on their idealogical purity while constantly losing. Winning politics requires cooalition building and some compromise to form a majority. I still retain most of my libertarian beleifs, but now beleive the best way to advance them is through the tea party wing of the repub party. In any event, Obama is the most unlibertarian president we have ever had, and must go. Voting for Romney, who on economic issues is pretty good, is the only way to defeat Obama.
I agree with Wayne, now is not the time to split the vote with a third party, there’s just too much at stake this time. Our best bet to get on the road to recovery is to vote for the lesser of evils, which is, as Wayne states, Romney and the republicans.
I took a survey a short while back and the survey showed that I was a liberatian, and Ron Paul did have some excellent ideas on the direction the country should be heading in, however his attitude towards Israel and a few other things has deleted him from my concideration. Having said that, my favorite cantidate (or would be candidate) chose not to run so we are stuck with the Romney/Ryan ticket. If you write in Ron Paul you have given Obama another vote and it is as simple as that. So you must honestly ask yourselves would you rather have Romney/Ryan or Obama/Biden for the next four years!
This is not all or nothing; Libertarian Party versus Republican Party. We can be winners on both fronts.
If you are a Libertarian living in a swing state, vote Romney/Ryan. Please.
If you live in a deeply red state, please vote for Libertarian Gary Johnson for President.
Ole’ carrot and stick. The more votes the Libertarian Party gets in the election, the more incentive President Romney will have to move in a more explicitly libertarian direction. And the higher the Libertarian vote total, the more demoralized the Marxist Democrat Party will become.
This will hurt Gary Johnson only due to the fact that Wayne Allen Root introduced him at Libertarian conference. Actually it was a bad choice for Gary to allow Root anywhere near him as Libertarian in name only Wayne and Billy Cunningham already threw Gary away in favor of Romney back last fall on Cunningham’s radio show! Now its clear that Wayne Root is a friggin LINO fraud who doesn’t give a rip about the constitution and so its fitting that he finally fesses up and leaves the party to support cold rubber chicken flip-flop-fascist Romney!
Greetings …
Elections are where political ideology meets the pragmatism of governing.
It is unfortunate, but in American politics today, a Libertarian vote is essentially a Democrat vote. Mr. Root has figured this out, and determined that he needs to be more pragmatic than ideological.
I am not a LP member. To those of you voting in swing areas .. remember that the only vote against Obama in this election is a vote for Romney.
Maybe he’s smart enough to recognize what a lot of you here are failing to see and understand. If we do not unseat Barack Obama this year, there will be NO 2016 election to change anything. Obama is the most dangerous President we ever have encountered. If he is given a second term, there will be no getting rid of him or his extremely dangerous and divisive policies. Your dedication to your principles and your party are admirable, but if we don’t unite and defeat Obama, they are going to be very cold comfort in a nation of unbridled, unabashed tyranny.
If Obama people are doing what ever it takes for their vote, even using dead people to vote. Who cares who will endorse Romney? I can sense that many of you have no idea what`s to live under Communism. I do. In this country, we not only dealing with Communism, but Immigration, terrorism and race. Do you still want to take a chance and play clean, when the others (Obama`s gang) are not. Here ,we have to stand for one Romney/Ryan. To be or not to be, and we are!!!!
Totally agree. So good to see a few shining stars light up the darkness that has become the libertarian party these days.
Texas lost a lot of our delegate power because of the libertarian RP’ers screwing us. That is serious and should cause all republicans to pause and think long and hard about who is pulling the strings behind the libertarian party. I am not happy about the GOP giving us the smack down, but I understand it.
Libertarians are losing credibility and they dont care. They are not faithful to their party or to seeing america survive. Shame on them. Shame on Gary Johnson. Shame on the state of New Mexico, but it is a wildly liberal state. It is also one of the poorest states I have ever visited. Beside the ski areas. God help us. God save America from the libertarians.
Good riddance. The only mainstream attention that Root’s gotten since 2008 has been for his dabbling in Birther-esque conspiracy theories about President Obama. Claiming that Obama attended Columbia as a foreign exchange student. Claiming that he was enrolled as “Barry Soetoro.” Very nearly testifying in an insane “citizens’ trial” in NYC that alleged that Obama was a CIA operative during his Columbia years.
Let Romney have the nut. It’s an embarrassment to the LP to be associated with such nonsense.
Anyone voting 3rd party in a battle ground state is voting for Obama. Look at your fracking TV. Look outside your windows. Man up and vote the Marxist out before he destroys the nation for good.
Thjo, I suspect some of you WANT that.
Wayne Root made a great decision. Maybe he realizes that only the Republicans headed by Romney can bring back the economy of America. He knows that the Libertarian is weak enough to put down Obama. Besides, he has the same goal with the Republicans, and that is to prevent Obama to be reelected as president.
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