Libertarian Roots runs for Senate

The paths people take to end up on the ballot are hardly ever the same, but few include being a high school dropout, convicted felon and former racist. Then again Libertarian candidate for the U.S. Senate

Roger Roots is not your typical candidate.

For Roots, it was his decision to turn away from a youth filled with racism and anti-Semitism, that he said makes him want to be a champion for individual liberties.

He said he now offers Montana a simple platform.

“I’m pro-choice on everything, pro-individual choice on every question,” Roots said. “If I’m elected to the Senate, I’ll only vote in one direction, and that is in favor, on every single issue, of individual liberty.”

It’s a liberty that starts with a far smaller federal government. Roots wants to strengthen the Fourth Amendment and blames both parties for the privacy issues under government programs.

“They agree with the national surveillance apparatus that they’ve both put in place,” said Roots. “The NSA and the warrantless surveillance over our communications, they totally agree. “

This year’s senate contest is his second run at office. In 2012, he ran for Montana Secretary of State, managing only 3.5 percent of the vote. But Roots himself has little legislative experience. He has worked as a lawyer largely appealing lower court ruling.

Roots is currently working as an assistant professor of criminology and sociology at Jarvis Christian College in Hawkins, Texas. He’s taken a short leave of absence to campaign in Montana.

When Roots talks about the racial and ethnic views that have caused him trouble in the past, he admits that he was a bit of a “lost soul in my youth.” It is a time that has haunted him.

“I used to be an extreme right winger, and I used to read the writings of Adolf Hitler and all kinds of racist materials,” Roots said.

His anti-Semitic views cost him a teaching position at Marcon College in Georgia in 2004.

But it was a book, “The Ultimate Resource 2” that argued natural resources were essentially limitless, that he said inspired him to look towards libertarianism.

Despite his conversion to the party’s beliefs, experts said it seems unlikely that Roots will play as significant a role in the election as fellow Libertarian Dan Cox did two years ago. Cox scored 6.5 percent of the vote that year in an election that narrowly sent Democrat Jon Tester back to the U.S. Senate.

Robert Saldin, an associate political science professor at the University of Montana, said unlike 2012, this year the Libertarians have a harder case to make as a protest against the Republican Daines.

“Daines has a very conservative voting record,” Saldin said. “He’s relatively inoffensive to the Tea Party, or even Libertarians.”

Still Roots said he has learned a lot from the Cox campaign.

“[The 2012 election] goes to show you that libertarianism is growing. I think in Montana we are regularly getting over five percent in statewide elections,” Roots said. “And by the way, when we get over five percent that really unsettles the government establishment.”