Bob Smith vs. Scott Brown and the 'Central Planners'

Bob Smith vs. Scott Brown. Bob Smith vs. the "Central Planners." Bob Smith vs. the D.C. Establishment, which he says spurred Scott Brown to run for U.S. Senate in New Hampshire.

"I guess they felt the rest of us up here weren't worthy," Smith dryly says. "You'll have to ask them."

The former U.S. senator and conservative from Tuftonboro has his narrative dialed in as he seeks the Republican nomination on Sept. 9, now less than five months away. It's the same nomination the GOP denied him in 2002, opting for a fresh face, that of former Sen. John E. Sununu. 

And now another fresh face wants to crash Bob Smith's party.

Scott Brown, the former U.S. senator from Massachusetts who moved to his long-time family vacation home in Rye, N.H., will launch his campaign April 10 in Portsmouth.

And so there will be, as Smith jokes, three U.S. senators running for Senate in New Hampshire. U.S. Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH) is not just circling the wagons, she's come out on the offensive with Brown's entry into the race.

The GOP primary field now has Smith, Brown, Jim Rubens, and Karen Testerman.

Smith, relaxed and upbeat in an interview with Patch at his Bedford campaign office this week, repeatedly zinged Brown as a guy who voted with Democrats "62 percent of the time." 

"I think he's a guy just looking for a place to run and that's opportunism, but that's fine," Smith says. "He is a legal candidate and I have no problem with it. More important than where he lives or where he came from is what he stands for and he's Democrat-lite."

"We lose every single time we veer to the left in our party," he says. "The platform is the platform."

Republicans, he adds, cannot waver on being pro-gun, pro-life, pro-business and anti-regulation, and fiscally conservative. "When we sacrifice our principles, we lose."

As has been noted, the same guiding principles led Smith to leave the GOP during his brief run for president in 2000. After 2002, he lived in Florida and briefly ran for Senate in the Sunshine State. His travels are such that critics say Smith is the last person who should call Brown a "carpetbagger" – not that Smith does so, as he says he dislikes the word. 

But he certainly is free-swinging at his opponent. "It's not personal," he says, "It's all about the issues."

Smith has spoken to a handful of Tea Party events in the past month or so. Asked about the Tea Party and its place in the 2014 elections, he had this to say: 

"I have no problem being called a Tea Party candidate. I think I'm more than a Tea Party candidate. I have no problem being identified with that label. They are bringing so much to the party and yet some of the very same people who are with Brown are criticizing us and trying to drive the Tea Party folks out."

Smith is at peace with the fact that he will be out-spent in this race. He maintains that the right message is money. 

"All the carpet-bombing in the world, in terms of spending, is not going to change a person's mind if they are committed. This is what these people don't understand."

He also referenced a Rasmussen poll last month that indicated what he called a favorable matchup for himself against Shaheen. (The media focused on the headline of the March 17 release – Shaheen over Brown, 50 percent to 41 percent, with 5 percent undecided and 4 percent for another candidate.)

During the interview at his office – the same office Sen. Rick Santorum used for his presidential primary headquarters in 2012 – Smith mentioned "central planners" half a dozen times. What are the central planners? They are, in his words, the interests who want to run people's lives. It's those groups that suckle at bloated government bureaucracy. It's Obamacare, the IRS, Common Core, NSA spying et al – and an establishment that recruits Brown to run for Senate, according to Smith.

"Basically the campaign is very simple," he says. "Freedom vs. central planners. What do you want for the future of your country, more freedom or less?"