The Liberty Papers

You may remember Wayne Allyn Root as the sports betting “expert” cum political commentator who ended up being Bob Barr’s running mate on the 2008 Libertarian Party Presidential ticket. In 2010 he was elected to a position on the Libertarian National Committee and, while many had figured he’d be running for the Presidential nomination this year, he doesn’t appear to be doing so.

Perhaps that’s because he’s decided that Libertarians need to vote for Mitt Romney.

Yes, you heard that right, a member of the Libertarian Party’s governing body said on the Cinncinnati-based Bill Cunningham show [Podcast here] that he’s supporting Mitt Romney and so should other libertarians:

I think the important thing now is to make sure Obama is not elected,and that means in my mind, I would love for a libertarian like Gary Johnson the two term governor of New Mexico would actually get elected President, but I think we all know that’s not going to happen so therefore it’s got to be Romney there is no choice.

Root purported to defend himself in a comment thread at the Independent Political Report:

I said in a perfect world I’d like to see Gary Johnson elected President, he’d be the best choice out there…I also said several times on the call that Mitt Romney is a big spending, big government Northeast liberal…that he will make very little difference because of this…

And that the difference between Obama and Romney…

Is that Romney will slow down our path off a cliff just a bit…and Obama will take us off the cliff in a matter of minutes.

But neither is good enough to save USA from long decline towards mediocrity.

And that Romney’s victory will most probably prove that neither party can change our problems enough to save the economy…so hopefully it will lead to a serious Libertarian third party threat in 2016…of which I plan to be the Presidential candidate.

That’s what I said. It’s on tape. Sorry folks but you can’t take things out of context.

Nobody’s taking anything out of context Wayne. In fact, I think your comment at IPR makes it fully clear what this is really all about. Since you can’t be the LP nominee  in 2012 you apparently have no problem with throwing the guy who most likely will be the nominee under the bus, clinging on to the theory that you’re going to somehow be the nominee in 2016. What happened to that promise in your book that you were going to be the LP nominee in 2012, 2016, and then win the White House in 2020?

Root has every right to his opinion, of course, what he doesn’t have the right to do is trash the party he’s purporting to represent for his own personal interests. If he wants to endorse and vote for Mitt Romney in 2012, that’s his choice. I think it’s a stupid one, but people have the right to make stupid choices. What I don’t understand is how he can continue holding a position of supposed responsibility in the Libertarian Party while endorsing a Republican instead of his own party’s nominee, and I’m not even a member of the LP. The point isn’t that Root doesn’t have a right to endorse Romney, but that it’s an insult to the party he claims to represent that he does so while sitting on the party’s National Committee.

Of course, I was telling people Root was a phony two years ago, and when he almost participated in a birther “trial” of Barack Obama, and then again when he took the side of religious bigots in the controversy over the so-called Ground Zero Mosque.

Nobody should be surprised his latest antics, really.