Rep. Linda Smith Runs For Murray’s Senate Seat

Rep. Linda Smith said she will run for the U.S. Senate without two of the hallmarks of modern congressional races: special interest money and negative campaigning.

The fact that the Vancouver Republican made a three-stop trip around Washington state Monday to announce her candidacy surprised few, if any.

Smith has been hinting at the race - and challenging incumbent Democrat Patty Murray - for months. The two-term congresswoman lacked only the formal announcement to mobilize the campaign workers who have been with her through initiative battles and personal campaigns, the people she calls “Linda’s Army.”

It will be a campaign to prove that a Senate seat can be won without money from political action committees, she told several dozen supporters and interested partisans in the lobby of the Davenport Hotel.

“We must stand together to restore the trust of the American people in our government,” she said. “The vicious negative campaigning that has become so commonplace in our political system today has got to stop.”

Smith said she took no PAC money for her re-election campaign last year, but later amended that statement to explain that she did not solicit money from the special interests. The Federal Elections Commission lists her with about $25,000 in PAC contributions, a number which she said should only be about $9,000.

The money she did take from PACs came in early 1995, Smith added, when she needed to pay off debts from her 1994 campaign and before she made the pledge to eschew the handouts from lobbying groups.

Smith said she would not engage in negative campaigning, which she described as “no personal attacks.” She would also ask organizations, to refrain from such attacks.

When such tactics are used by so-called independent committees - those which have no connection with the candidate’s campaign - that can be difficult, she acknowledged.

Among the issues central to the campaign, she said, would be protection of Social Security and Medicare, and a strong but frugal defense budget.

To fix Medicare, Smith said, the nation should set up a three-tiered system. Those currently on the health care system should continue, while the succeeding generation of Baby Boomers should be given several options for coverage. The current generation of children should face a completely new structure that replaces the tax-funded system with tax incentives.

She would protect Social Security by putting all the money paid by workers and employers into a reserve account.

Smith said she would draw clear distinctions with Democrat Murray in the coming months. But while Murray was the only possible opponent named in her speech, some of her remarks seemed aimed at a possible Republican foe, U.S. Rep. Jennifer Dunn of Bellevue.

Dunn, the former state GOP chairwoman and accomplished fundraiser, could be the target of Smith’s jibes about PAC contributions and “raising money in Washington, D.C.”

Dunn, a rising star in House Republican ranks, has said she would decide by June 1 whether to run for the Senate.

If she doesn’t, Rep. George Nethercutt of Spokane has said he might.

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Color photo