Robert Smith (Getty)
Former New Hampshire Sen. Robert C. Smith announced Monday that he is once again officially a candidate for the Senate - this time for the open seat in Florida.
Smith, who served in the Senate from 1991 to 2003, has lived in Sarasota, Fla., for seven years. He joins a GOP primary field that includes Gov. Charlie Crist and former Florida House Speaker Marco Rubio for the seat Republican Mel Martinez is leaving after one term. Four-term Rep. Kendrick Meek announced his candidacy in January and is the leading Democratic in the growing field of candidates.
"I can no longer sit on the sidelines in this fight for the soul of the Republican Party and to preserve the freedoms and values of our constitutional Republic," Smith said in a statement posted on his Web site. "I have 18 years of proven and principled conservative leadership and I proudly wear the scars of those battles... I led the fights for protecting freedom and liberty, respect for the Constitution, the preservation of the Second Amendment, the rights of the unborn, U.S. sovereignty, a strong national defense, cutting taxes and spending and reducing the size of government."
Smith also noted that he was one of only three senators who voted against the nomination of Ruth Bader Ginsberg for the Supreme Court and one of only 29 to vote against Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor for the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals in 1998.
"We cannot bring America back to her conservative and constitutional principles and values by blindly putting liberal activist judges on our nation's highest courts," said Smith.
Smith ran for the Senate against Martinez in 2004 but dropped out after he had trouble raising money.
He generated controversy in 1999, when he temporarily abandoned the Republican Party and switched his registration to Independent during a failed bid for the presidency. He returned to the GOP months later and was defeated in New Hampshire's Republican primary in 2002 by then-Rep. John E. Sununu, who went on to win the Senate seat. Sununu lost his 2008 re-election bid to Democrat Jeanne Shaheen.
-- Greg Vadala
![[RSS]](http://blogs.cqpolitics.com/templates/images/rss_icon.gif){kind=icon}
![[ARCHIVES]](http://blogs.cqpolitics.com/templates/images/archives_icon.png){kind=icon}
Comments
"Smith ran for the Senate against Martinez in 2004 but dropped out after he had trouble raising money." Is this Part Deux? What's wrong with this guy? He's an asterisk in the polls. Somebody should tell him.
Posted by: NObama
| June 9, 2009 5:42 PM
Post A Comment