This is rather disturbing since he's at the top of "Money Decides" and appears especially to the outside world to be our front runner.
I would love to know what those who have so actively recruited him into the party and sold him to us have to say about this. Doubt we'll hear much, though.
I'm glad my region endorsed Kubby.
Tom, I pretty much agree with you about WAR. However I do not agree with your limit of the remaining candidates to two. Several of the remaining candidates have arguments in their favor.
Bob,
I didn't "limit the remaining candidates to two." I simply chose to mention two others with whom I am most well-acquainted, whose stories contrast positively with Root's, and whom I believe to have significant support.
Regards,
Tom
Tom, that's honestly not much dirt.
Personally, I don't consider selling sports betting tips to be a very "honorable" profession, whatever that means. Combine that with my fundamental distate for all things infomercial and puffery in general, and Root has a ways to go to earn my loyalty.
However, if you compare his business to similar businesses (make millions on real estate!, etc.), then he's received a relatively low number of complaints per sale. Hell, Harry Browne made his living selling commodities betting "tips", and his lectures to Gold Bug crowds where fundamentally no different than Root's infomercials. Merely different demographics.
Also, IF the New York Times were to look into his business dealings (a) he will have already suceeded more than any previous LP candidate, and (b) they wouldn't find it exciting or damning enough to be more than a short blurb, if that. Only if Root were a threat to a major candidate would a mountain be made from this relative mole him. And we both know that Root as the nominee would be just as much a threat as Phillies or Kubby ... very little if any.
I'm not saying that there isn't a case against Root. Or that your points aren't valid and worthy of airing. I just don't see anything here that would disqualify Root. I see only weaknesses. He has weaknesses and strengths, as do the others.
Chris,
I agree that selling investment advice and selling betting tips are very similar lines of work.
However, I am unaware of anyone claiming that Harry Browne pushed simultaneous conflicting lines of investment advice, kept the clients who got the winning advice (because it worked), kept some of the clients who got the losing advice (until they decided he was never going to get it right), and sent the other losers' phone numbers to another station to be suckered again. That is the essence of "scamdicapping," and there's enough scamdicapping smoke around Root to make the suspicion of fire very, very credible.
It's not as if Harry Browne's campaigns were a credit to the Libertarian Party. It's hard for me to see "not really different from Harry Browne" as a defense. My dark suspicion is that Rootis looking for a new mailing list to pillage, like Browne was. When you factor in Karen DeCoster's God, you start to suspect that hitting up libertarians for cash is something of a business model.
Jim,
I supported a candidate other than Harry Browne for the LP's presidential nomination both times (1996 and 2000), and was harshly critical of some aspects of both his campaigns.
However, I disagree that his campaigns "weren't credits to the LP." In some ways they definitely were. He took some principled positions that required an able defense, and he provided such a defense.
Interestingly, after some in his own party sneered at him for suggesting assassination of troublesome dictators rather than endless war, and then after 9/11, a Republican congressman brought something that sounded an awful lot like Browne's proposal up for consideration in the US House. That congressman, by the way, was Bob Barr.
A lot of things bother me about Wayne Root. This hit piece covered some of his rather shady business background. Of more actual importance to me is his habit of changing positions on policy issues in order to bring himself into agreement with his audience.
He's gone from pro-Iraq-war to anti-Iraq-war-but-how-about-we-bomb-Iran to hey-let's-mind-our-own-business in a matter of months.
He went from "McCain/Lieberman 2008" to "Root for America" between November of 2006 and early 2007.
He's from "define marriage as one man, one woman" to "yay, same-sex marriage!" during his campaign.
I'm not confident that we could put him in front of two TV cameras and a row and not have him arguing with himself.
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