Sez you. I’ve never pretended to be a “business mogul” like Root did at first; therefore I’ve never had to retrench from “business mogul” to “small businessman” in terms of self-description.

On the other hand, for the last five years I’ve been the de facto CEO of a small business (a daily political publication, with spinoffs) that supports one full-time and four part-time workers (not employees—partners) on a novel “pay what you think it’s worth” revenue model. It may not be big, but the lights are still on and we’ve yet to miss an edition in more than 1,400 (we’ll be taking our first “all at once vacation” next week). So it may just be that I know a little more about business than you think I do.

“So, when Ruwart jumped in where was Knapp. When Gravel jumps in where’s Knapp. When Barr jumps in where’s Mr Knapp?”

I support Ruwart as a second choice to Kubby. Attacking candidates I support isn’t in my job description.

Gravel is down my list—I prefer him to some of the other candidates, and also consider him marginal enough not to need to be attacked.

I’ve been on Barr like the white on rice.

And I’ve never, ever, ever threatened to “destroy the LP.” That’s just a flat-out lie.

This discrediting of his endorser’s is really low stuff. These people have a right to pick a candidate. Just as you have a right to favor yours. But they’ve gone a step further…and stepped up to do so publicly. And more of them have done that for Root than everyone else combined. So, why do you feel previleaged to diride them as nobodies. Who the heck are you? Does anyone know you beyond TPW?

Like him or not Root has endorsements from LP leaders and activist, the top people in his industry, and media people who he’s convinced on the air. He has won more straw polls than anyone else that cared to compete with him. He’s gotten millions of dollars worth of free air time for the LP. Peter O we are not at all concerned about being represented by Root on air. He’s been there… a lot. He’ll be there again next Friday. He’s not selling a book or riding on who he was in the past. He’s there because he works. The people who endorse him publicly buy that as a good thing.

Now, most of the negative comments here are about his business, not issues. Most business people who serve the public realize this is much ado about nothing. So, lets be clear. WHO CARES?

Tom Knapp knows nothing about business. His first attack on Root was an admitted hit piece and Root hadn’t done anything to warrant it…except be the front runner. So, when Ruwart jumped in where was Knapp. When Gravel jumps in where’s Knapp. When Barr jumps in where’s Mr Knapp? He’s already been dumped by Kubby for burying his campaing in negativity.

Folks, listen, buisnesses using telemarketing, direct mail, Internet etc are “by law” required to give you your money back within 30 days of recieving your order no questions asked. By law.

I would assume that anyone who gets the goods and doesn’t like them will take advantage of that law. If Root has built a business using direct response advertising etc., take a moment and ask yourself why do people send him money and let him keep it?

You may not like the method but then you must really hate most American buisnesses out there. That’s sad and not consistent with a free market philosophy we supposedly favor. If Ruwarts vision comes to pass you won’t even have that law to protect the consumer.

How many compliants do you think Microsoft, McDonalds, or any business that deals with thousands of poeple a day get every day? If Bill Gates were to say he wants to run for president with the LP do you think you’d trot out those complaints to kill his chances. That’s a laugh.

Did you know that Nike was saved at one point through direct mail. That their products were falling apart for a long time till they got their formua right? There are hundreds of name brands that have customer complaints. And this guy has a dozen or so. Give it a rest.

We’re sure Bob Barr has a few complaints as well. We’re sure that Ruwart has a few unmarketable positions and Phillies has never been bad mouthed by a student. Gravel wasn’t a very popular Senator when in office so what’s the point of beating a dead horse?

In short this is really sad comentary and just turns off people interested in the LP. That’s what some of you want. Tom Knapp even said he’d go out of his way to destroy the LP rather than let a Reformer candidate get the nod. So, why do you bother, is this all you have? If so its sad you won’t let someone like Root make it bigger and better.

the committee
...nuff said…

The only endorsements at this time that would impress me would be those of Ed Clark, David Nolan or Tonie Nathan.

The best of luck to Mr. Root, but so far I’ve seen nothing to impress. Come back in 4 or 8 years, when you have more than one year in the Libertarian Party (at least he has Gravel beat), and then try and run for President – you won’t look so much like an opportunist then (we already have Barr and Gravel and even the possibility of Ventura trying to vulterize the party this year).

I’m not the one who “forced” this issue into the discussion this time. YOU are.

I delved into Wayne’s BBB record ONE TIME on my own, and did so with complete accuracy. Wayne responded with inaccurate bluster, so I went into that record a second time in more depth in order to demonstrate the inaccuracy of said bluster.

After that, I was content to leave it alone. I had pantsed Root in public, and then spanked his red ass when he tried to convince everyone that no, he was just naturally inclined to go with the low-rider style of trouser wear.

Then, this last week, Root’s campaign manager decided to open the issue up again. Nobody made Mark bring up Wayne’s BBB record. Nobody made Mark lie about Wayne’s BBB record. And instead of jumping on it in public, I spent several hours emailing back and forth with Wayne trying nicely to get him to remove the lie instead of leaving it out there for me—or someone else—to pounce on. I ended up not running with it for the simple reason that I felt perhaps Wayne WANTED me to, and that made me suspicious.

Then you decided to bring it up here—and to prove that you can’t read as well by pasting in the BBB report which clearly shows not a single complaint resolved TO THE CUSTOMER’S SATISFACTION.

Six complaints were closed.

Of those six, in three the customer did not acknowledge acceptance to the BBB.

Of the other three, the customer refused Wayne’s company’s resolution offer in two, and remained dissatisfied in one.

Six of 13 complaints closed. Of the six closed, NONE to the customer’s satisfaction. That may be a mountain or it may be a molehill … but the Root campaign is lying about it.

Lying is usually a bad idea.

Continuing to lie about issues you’ve already been caught cold lying about isn’t very smart.

I reject the argument that contesting a lie when you trot it out is “forcing” an issue. If you don’t want to get smacked around for lying, don’t do it.

He said there are about 12 million gamblers to which he would have access and he has the list of about 2 million? (cannot remember how much he said). Well, with such a list and with all his countless media appearances that are so hyped, one would expect a substantial number of people donating to his campaign. And he has been campaigning since several months. Well, so far I count 33 donors, not exactly a big amount…of course there could be more in the meantime, so I stand to be corrected, but doubt it would be more than 50

http://www.newsmeat.com/campaign_contributions_to_politicians/donor_list.php?candidate_id=P80004997

Sadly this year a man who is MUCH LESS of a libertarian in almost every category will outpace WAR in the Reform wing of the LP in Denver for the nomination. Hopefully WAR won’t become discouraged and will continue within the LP after this convention. I for one have been pleased to see his movement over this year into a more complete Libertarian. A moderate libertarian is an electable libertarian ! The definition of a moderate libertarian can be discussed for months (by some) however most understand the term.

I wish WAR would consider running for and winning the LV mayor position. It would be a position from which a credible POTUS campaign could come. Anyway, in less than two weeks the “verbal abuse” will stop from most Libertarians. Thanks for running. Hope to hear from WAR down the road…

Jim LIBERTARIAN Burns/Steve KUBBY ‘08
I’ve become a FAN of the “fat”MAN and the “head”MAN

www .infowars,com
the TRUTH will set you free

STOP Barr the drugWARRIOR
http://www.lewrockwell.com/katz-j/katz-j28.html

“If Root is the nominee, he will meet a lot of voters who are unfamiliar with libertarianism. When they ask his campaign for clarifications, will those voters be told they’re dummies?”

******************************

Peter, I have seen you post dozens of comments on this blog. You obviously know quite a bit about libertarianism. To the extent that my comment was negative, it reflected my exasperation with Mr. Knapp trying to force this issue into the delegate’s faces for the third, or is it the fourth time.

May 14th, 2008 at 10:59 am
That’s a rather hostile response to what I think was a very reasonable question.”

If my response to Mr. Orvetti was hostile, I don’t think Mr. Orvetti reads the comment section of TPW very often.

*********************

Unlike Mr. Knapp, I don’t have the time to spend an hour on the phone with a BBB trying to figure out exactly how to interpret these data.

However, this is what Mr. Knapp’s link gets you to…

“Complaint History

When considering complaint information, please take into account the company’s size and volume of transactions, and understand that the nature of complaints and a firm’s responses to them are often more important than the number of complaints.

The Bureau processed a total of 13 complaints about this company in the last 36 months, our standard reporting period. Of the total (13) in 36 months, (6) was/were closed in the last year.

Complaints concerned:
3 – Selling Practices

BBB Definition:

Selling Practices – Claims of alleged unknown specifics.

1 – Sales presentation used dishonest sales practices
1 – Sales presentation used high pressure methods
1 – General Sales Complaint Issues
1 – Service Issues

BBB Definition:

Service Issues – Claims of alleged delay in completing service, failure to provide promised service, inferior quality of provided service, or damage merchandise as a result of delivery service.

1 – General Service Complaint Issues
4 – Billing or Collection Issues
BBB Definition:

Billing or Collection Issues – Claim alleging billing errors, unauthorized charges, or questionable collection practices.

2 – Unauthorized credit card charges
1 – Unauthorized bank debits
1 – Failure to substantiate charges
3 – Refund or Exchange Issues

BBB Definition:

Refund or Exchange Issues – Claim of alleged failure to honor company policy or verbal commitment to provide refunds, exchanges, or credit for products or services.

1 – Failure to honor promised refunds, exchanges, or contract
2 – General Refund or Exchange Complaint Issues
1 – Contract Issues

BBB Definition:

Contract Issues – Claim of alleged failure to honor contract or agreement, work performed without authorization, or invalid contract.

1 – Failure to honor a contract or agreement
1 – Customer Service Issues
BBB Definition:

Customer Service Issues – Claims alleging unsatisfactory customer service, including personnel’s failure to provide assistance in a timely manner, failure to address or respond to customer dissatisfaction, unavailability for customer support, and/or inappropriate behavior or attitude exhibited by company staff.

1 – Failure to respond to phone calls or written requests for assistance or support

The 6 complaints closed in the last 12 months was/were closed as:

3 – Resolved

BBB Definition:

Resolved – The company resolved the complaint issues.

3 – Company resolved the complaint issues. The consumer failed to acknowledged acceptance to the BBB.
3 – Administratively Closed

BBB Definition:

Administratively Closed – The BBB determined the company made a good faith and reasonable effort to resolve the issues, although the complainant was not always satisfied with the outcome.

2 – BBB determined the company made good faith and reasonable offer to resolve the issues, but the consumer did not accept the offer.
1 – BBB determined that despite the company’s good faith effort to address complaint issues, the consumer remained dissatisfied.

********************************

I know Mr. Knapp loves to spin data so that it is totally unrecognizable, but from the above numbers I see exactly ONE complaint that was not resolved to the customer’s satisfaction.

So, Mr. Knapp is again trying to make a mountain out of a molehill.

If you don’t believe me, click on the link in Mr. Knapp’s post on

May 14th, 2008 at 11:00 am yourself.

You write:

“The small number of Better Business complaints against him were, to my knowledge, all resolved to the satisfaction of the customer.”

The last time I checked the BBB reports on Wayne’s business—which was this weekend when I was giving him an opportunity to remove the false claim above from a letter Mark Schreiber posted on his campaign site—the BBB showed NO complaints “resolved to the satisfaction of the customer.” Just checked again—same same.

The BBB reports are handled on a “rolling” basis, so I suppose that it’s possible that Root’s business has, at one time or another, resolved a customer complaint to the customer’s satisfaction. Over the reported period, however, its “resolved to the customer’s satisfaction” batting average with BBB is .000.

And, as I demonstrated the last time around, Root’s BBB complaint numbers are on the high end both for infomercial/telemarketing sales operations and for sports handicapping services. It only came to my attention after investigating his and Mark’s claims that they’re also high versus stock brokerages and, on a per customer basis, Fortune 500 companies.

To put it bluntly, the Root campaign’s characterization of his Better Business Bureau record is 100% pure bullshit. It’s a flat-out lie, and the proof is a click away from anyone’s desktop—demonstrating that Wayne does, at least, have chutzpah.