Politics

Wayne Allyn Root Is Why the Libertarian Party Can't Have Nice Things

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Former Libertarian Party vice presidential candidate and current Libertarian National Campaign Committee Chair Wayne Allyn Root is why libertarians can't have nice things. Case in point: Root's latest column at Glenn Beck's The Blaze.

Let me sum it up for you: Mitt Romney should offer to release more tax returns only if Obama will release his college transcripts. This will take the pressure off Romney, and put the scrutiny back on Obama, except that Obama will never release his transcripts because he pretended to be from another country to get loans and then seldom went to classes at Columbia and got poor grades. Wayne Allyn Root knows all this because he also graduated from Columbia in 1983 and doesn't remember seeing any black people "Barry Soetoro."  

This awful, weird, conspiratorial column, just linked by Matt Drudge, will probably be the most widely read thing Root has ever written. Its existence is a tragedy for Libertarians and libertarians.

Root's bio identifies him as "a former Libertarian vice presidential nominee" and "Chairman of the Libertarian National Campaign Committee" and the author of a book titled "The Conscience of a Libertarian." You know what that means? It means Wayne Allyn Root is an ambassador for libertarianism, and that his columns are a direct reflection on the Libertarian Party, which has several times elected him to prominent positions despite the fact that he is a glistening PR disaster.   

Then again, nowhere in his piece for The Blaze does Root mention a single Libertarian candidate for office. This is probably a good thing, but also odd, because it's campaign season, and the job of the Libertarian National Campaign Committee is to run Libertarian Party candidates at the local, state, and congressional levels. Mitt Romney is not a candidate for local, state, or congressional office, and he is not a Libertarian (or even a libertarian). 

So why is Wayne Allyn Root giving Romney free campaign advice, when he should be talking to, and about, Libertarian Party candidates? Are the heads of Democratic and Republican organizations writing insane memos telling Gary Johnson how to beat Obama, the bad-grade-getter? Are they telling down-ticket Libertarian Party candidates how to deflect questions about their finances? 

NOPE.  

That Root writes about Romney as if Gary Johnson did not exist is awful. What's worse is that articles like Root's repel the kind of people Johnson needs in November.

As for anyone who's still upset about The Weekly Standard's description of this year's LP convention as a "goat rodeo": Why don't you direct your rage at the clown running the Libertarian National Campaign Committee?