Wayne Allyn Root - Libertarian

 

Wayne Allyn Root was born July 20, 1961, in Mount Vernon, New York. He graduated Valedictorian from high school, and attended Columbia University as a political science major, to eventually graduate in 1983. Other details are sketchy or not disclosed. He resides in Las Vegas, Nevada.

His occupations and avocations are business mogul, television celebrity, TV producer, author, and professional sports handicapper. He is founder and chairman of Winning Edge International Inc., a publicly-traded company. Starting in the year 2000, he began producing an infomercial series, "Wayne Allyn Root's Winning Edge" on the Discovery Channel, focusing on the business of sports handicapping.

He is an entrepreneur, citing his business success as "living proof that the American Dream is alive and well". His childhood ambition was to be this generation's Jimmy "The Greek" Snyder, Mr. Snyder having been the sports handicapper who predicted football winners for CBS television during the 70's and 80's. By age 27, he was a fixture of CNBC's Financial News Network, being one of the youngest anchormen to do so.

His television production company is named "Cool Hand ROOT". Along with producing "Wayne Allyn Root's Winning Edge", he has also created, produced, and co-hosted the prime-time TV series "King of Vegas" on the SpikeTV channel. "King of Vegas" is a reality show in which contestants compete in gambling games; completing the series wins the title.

He has his own testimonial star in the "Las Vegas Walk of Stars" in front of the New York New York Hotel Casino on Las Vegas Blvd. He has also written three books, "Root on Risk: Betting to Win on Sports", "The Zen of Gambling" and "The King of Vegas' Guide to Gambling- How to Win Big at Poker, Casino Gambling & Life". He has also made many television appearances, being a guest on shows such as "CNN's Crossfire", "Politically Incorrect with Bill Maher", "NBC's Today show", "Fox News Channel's O'Reilly Factor", "On the Record with Greta Van Susteren", and many others. He is frequently cited as a gambling and odds expert.

His platform is that he supports smaller government, reduced spending, reduced entitlements, reduced bureaucracy, dramatically lower taxes and more freedom for the individual. For education, he says that he would like to support more parental control, more emphasis on school choice, and increased competition through vouchers. He also supports gun rights for the individual. He describes himself as a fiscal conservative in the mode of Ronald Reagan and Barry Goldwater. He is, however, socially Liberal, believing that most social issues should be determined on the state and local level.

He emphasizes that he is not one of the power-elite who seem to currently be in charge of the country. He promises to lead America back to prosperity by restoring fiscal discipline, personal responsibility, rugged individualism, and individual rights and freedoms.

He describes himself as a "Libertarian Republican", although he is running on the Libertarian ticket. He has announced his candidacy for President of the United States for 2008. He has never held public office. However, he stands well on his success and fame as an indicator that what he could do for his business, he could do for the country. He is optimistic about his chances, citing many times that he happened to go to school with Barack Obama and that he is from the Ivy League.