Withdraws from FL Senate race, citing lack of money
Former New Hampshire Sen. Bob Smith on Thursday ended his campaign for a Senate seat in his new home of Florida, citing a poor start to fund-raising. The Republican raised only $66,000 in a crowded campaign that features five GOP candidates who have
topped the $1 million mark. "In spite of our best effort, we just didn't raise enough money to make the campaign viable," Smith said. Smith was only receiving about 1% support in recent polls.
Smith has long been considered a maverick.
He left the Republican party and ran for president in 1999, but rejoined the party a few months later, saying he had made a mistake. The two-term senator was defeated in the 2002 Republican primary by John Sununu, who went on to win the election.
He took a job last year selling high-end waterfront real estate in Florida. Instead of seeking office again, Smith said he accepted an appointment to be president of the Everglades Foundation, a nonprofit group dedicated to restoring the wetlands area.
Source: USA Today
Apr 15, 2004
Announces bid for Senate in Florida
Former New Hampshire Sen. Bob Smith said Wednesday he will seek the seat of retiring Sen. Bob Graham in a race to represent his newly adopted home state of Florida. "I'm going to run a campaign which I basically offer my credentials to the people
of Florida, my seniority, my experience in the Senate," Smith said. "I want to help President Bush. This is a critical state for the president." Smith, 62, served two terms in the Senate before he was defeated by New Hampshire Sen. John Sununu in
last year's primary. Smith said he would base his candidacy on issues that have long marked his political career: military and veterans affairs, the space industry, and environmental protection such as the Florida Everglades. A social conservative,
Smith was frequently at odds with the GOP establishment. He quit the party and ran for president in 1999, saying the Republican platform was "not worth the paper it's written on." He rejoined the party a few months later, saying he'd made a mistake.
Source: Associated Press in Bradenton (FL) Herald
Dec 18, 2003
Exiting race, returning to GOP
Smith said he was folding his presidential campaign, citing the prohibitive cost of running as an independent. Smith said he still believes what he said on leaving the GOP in July. “We won the revolution on issues. We won the
revolution on principle,” he told his colleagues then. “But the desire to stay in power caused us to start listening to the pollsters again. I want my party to stand for something,” he said.
Source: David Espo, Associated Press
Oct 28, 1999
Most reliable Republican in Senate, despite resigning GOP
Smith likes to say, “I’m the most reliable Republican vote in the Senate.” You could look it up. In a compilation done annually by Congressional Quarterly, Smith [is listed as] the Republican most likely to do what most Republicans do on any given vote.
Smith brought this up in the context of his decision to resign from the GOP. To borrow former Democrat Ronald Reagan’s old line, his party had left him, not the other way around.
Source: Thomas Oliphant, Boston Globe editorial, p. C7
Jul 18, 1999
Smith quit because GOP was hostile to his activist causes
Smith comes from the grass roots, where people with strong beliefs are most likely to be found in politics today. [When Smith ran for Congress in 1980, a member of] the Republican establishment tried to persuade him to quit the race and clear the field
for a more moderate candidate. He refused, lost the primary, and won two years later. Smith is an activist who has decided that his party no longer means much of what it says, that its establishment has become downright hostile to people like him.
Source: Thomas Oliphant, Boston Globe editorial, p. C7
Jul 18, 1999
Grass-roots campaign on Main Street, not Wall Street
It will take a passionate, principled, grass roots crusade to restore American values and freedoms. This campaign will be conducted on Main Street, not Wall Street. I am going to fund this campaign with small contributions, and lots of them. So right now
I am asking every American who is watching today who cares about the future of this country to join my campaign. Let’s take stock in America. It’s not going to be a campaign for the faint of heart.
Source: www.SmithForPresident.org/ “Annoucement Speech”
Mar 29, 1999
Moral rebirth begins with tax policies that help families
America continues to suffer from moral and ethical decline. Our moral and ethical rebirth must begin in the most basic organizing unit of society -- the family. Government ought to promote tax policies that help families, such as ending the marriage
penalty and providing tax credits for families with children.
Source: Project Vote Smart NPAT 1996
Jul 2, 1996
Priorities: pay down debt; keep criminals in jail
My first priority is to put the Nation’s fiscal house in order by balancing the budget and paying down our national debt. Bringing down our huge annual interest payments on the debt will make more money available for fighting crime, funding education,
protecting the environment, and keeping Medicare solvent. My second priority is to stop violent crime by putting repeat violent criminals in jail an keeping them there. These would be funded by balancing the budget and paying down the national debt.
Source: Project Vote Smart NPAT 1996
Jul 2, 1996
Religious affiliation: Catholic.
Smith : religious affiliation:
The Adherents.com website is an independent project and is not supported by or affiliated with any organization (academic, religious, or otherwise).
What’s an adherent?
The most common definition used in broad compilations of statistical data is somebody who claims to belong to or worship in a religion. This is the self-identification method of determining who is an adherent of what religion, and it is the method used in most national surveys and polls.
Such factors as religious service attendance, belief, practice, familiarity with doctrine, belief in certain creeds, etc., may be important to sociologists, religious leaders, and others. But these are measures of religiosity and are usually not used academically to define a person’s membership in a particular religion. It is important to recognize there are various levels of adherence, or membership within religious traditions or religious bodies. There’s no single definition, and sources of adherent statistics do not always make it clear what definition they are using.
Source: Adherents.com web site 00-ADH11 on Nov 7, 2000
Click here for definitions & background information on Principles & Values.
Click here for policy papers on Principles & Values.
