New Hampshire Senator and independent presidential candidate Bob Smith announced yesterday that he will seek a presidential nomination from the United States Taxpayers Party.
In an official statement Smith said he will attend the USTP's convention in St. Louis on September 3-4, 1999, to seek the party's nomination for President.
Smith left the Republican party in mid-July stating that he perceived that the party lacked principles and that he wanted to give voters a choice.
Karen Hickey, the press secretary for Smith's presidential campaign, told The Dartmouth in July that "It is not Senator Smith who is leaving the party. The Republican party has left the Senator."
"Since leaving the GOP, I have received thousands of supportive letters, phone calls, faxes and emails form conservative Democrat, Republican and Independent voters who had no home since the days of Ronald Reagan," Smith said in yesterday's statement.
According to his campaign literature, Smith favors the uncompromised sovereignty of the United States, tax reduction, the right to bear arms and the right to life -- principles, he said in a mid-July interview on CNN's "Larry King Live," that are no longer important to the Republican party.
The USTP, recognized by the Federal Election Commission as the fifth national political party in 1995, endorsed Howard Phillips for President in 1992 and 1996.
According to its website the party's goals are to limit federal government power and restore American jurisprudence to its Biblical premises.
The USTP also favors the withdrawal of the United States from the United Nations, the termination of federal funding for Planned Parenthood, AIDS education and the National Endowment for the Arts and the elimination of the United States Department of Education.
As either a USTP or Independent candidate, Smith will have the challenge of getting onto the Presidential election ballot state-by-state by gathering signatures from registered voters, a disadvantage his Republican and Democrat opponents will not share.
Former USTP candidate Phillips appeared on the ballot of 39 states in 1996.
Smith was elected as a Republican to the United States Senate from New Hampshire in 1990 and he is currently serving his second term. He previously served in the House of Representatives from 1984 to 1990.
At the time of the statement, Smith's office could give no information on his Senate committee appointments.
