Smith Announces He Will Leave GOP (Interview)

LARRY KING, HOST: Tonight, he's one of the most conservative candidates in the GOP presidential field, but he's got a radical decision to announce here.

Joining us, Senator Bob Smith of New Hampshire.

And later, she's blazing a political trail that no first lady has ever taken. A look at Hillary Rodham Clinton's United States Senate hopes with Democratic Congressman Charles Rangel of New York, Christopher Hitchens of "The Nation" and "Vanity Fair," and Cindy Adams, columnist of "The New York Post."

All next on LARRY KING LIVE.

He will speak on the floor of the United States Senate tomorrow. He joins us tonight with a major announcement. He's Senator Bob Smith, Republican of New Hampshire.

Were you the first announced candidate for your presidency of your party?

SEN. BOB SMITH (R-NH), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I believe I was, Larry. But I'm not certain of that, but I think so, yes.

KING: All right tell us what you're doing.

SMITH: Well, tomorrow at 2:15, I am going to take the floor of the Senate and announce that I am leaving the Republican Party, a party that has been my party for almost 50 years, as long as I can remember, and become an independent and seek the nomination of some other party perhaps, but right now just to—to remove myself from the Republican Party.

KING: The story that you will announce for the United States Taxpayers' Party's nomination is not true?

SMITH: Well, I'm not announcing for anything, Larry. What I am doing is speaking to a number of people, a lot of them in the Taxpayers' Party, who have come to me and spoken to me about whether or not I would want to lead that party. I am certainly interested. I am talking to them. It would be very presumptuous to say that the nomination is mine. That's not true. I'm simply talking to members of the party. They're very principled people. They're conservative like I am. They believe in the right to life, they believe in the Second Amendment, they believe that sovereignty of the United States is paramount, they believe that taxpayers are paying too much in taxes and would like to see the 16th Amendment repealed.

We agree on the issues, so clearly there's a lot of support among some of the delegates of that—in fact, most of the delegates, probably—of that convention for those issues.

KING: Can we say we're pretty certain you will be a candidate for another party on the ticket in November of 2000?

SMITH: I intend to be a candidate for president. I am going to be talking with a number of people over the next few weeks, and, yes, I think you'll see me out there. And I intend to bring this election to the American people. I mean, this election has to be brought to the American people. There has to be a choice, Larry.

KING: The last senator to do this I think was Senator Wayne Morris, who became an independent, therefore, had no—didn't sit on the caucus of either party and had some problems on committee. Do you expect any problems from your own party on serving on committees?

SMITH: Well, Larry, that's really up to Senator Lott and the Senate. I mean, I clearly—if you look at my record, I am the number-one senator in terms of support for the principles of the Republican Party. So if there are others that have better records, I don't know how they could have them.

KING: But if they remove you, they remove you?

SMITH: That's fine with me. I am not asking them to do that. I am willing to accept the judgment of my colleagues in the Senate.

KING: The concepts you enumerated as the reasons for leaving, aren't they still the principles of your party?

SMITH: Larry, they are the principles of the party platform, but what's happened is that we are now seeing leaders, the elitists of the party, many in the party who believe that electing people with an "R" next to their name is more important than principle. And I regret to say that.

When I first came to Congress in 1984, the same pollsters and the consultants that were in our ears here are still there. There are a few different ones, but a lot of them are the same. And what we see now is the pollsters and consultants telling candidates how to think. You know, 35 percent of married men think this way and 25 percent of unmarried women think that way. And we have to talk to them. Look, that's not leadership. Leadership is standing up for what you believe in. Stand for something or stand for nothing, that's what I'm about, Larry. And I've been dealing with this now for a lot of years. I've thought a lot about it. I can't conduct myself that way. This is America. America is at stake here. America is more important than the Republican Party or the Democratic Party or any other party. KING: There are some who said you're doing this only because you're low in the polls—George W. Bush has $36 million—and this gives you a voice somewhere else?

SMITH: Well, you know, Larry, my dad was a Naval aviator in the Second World War. He died at the end of that war, three—two days, actually, before my fourth birthday, so I didn't have a father who was a president. But I did have a man who served his country, who died for his country in the Second World War like so many other people did.

I don't have a lot of money. I've got a lot of work to do. And that's what it's all about, going out, grassroots, talking to the American people, giving them a choice in this election.

KING: So even if you were showing, say, eight or 10 percent in the polls, you still would have made this move tonight?

SMITH: Oh, absolutely. If polls—look, Patrick Henry didn't take a poll when he said, "Give me liberty or give me death." Lincoln didn't take a poll when he ended slavery. I mean, what are we— the pollsters are not the issue here. Pollsters are the issue in the sense that they're leading us by the nose everywhere, Larry. That's not leadership. Leader...

KING: Did you—did you torture over this, Senator?

SMITH: Well, it was...

KING: Was this difficult?

SMITH: It was a tough decision, Larry. I came into the Republican Party on principle and I'm leaving on principle, because the Republican Party platform is not—is not—it's a good platform, and I—and I respect what's in it and I agree with what's in it, but I cannot tolerate people walking away from it.

Let me give you one very notable example: Thirty-five million babies—and congratulations, by the way, to you for your new son, Chance—and I want to say 35 million babies since 1973 have died, and the probable leader, at least that's what everybody thinks, of the Republican Party has said let's not talk about that right now. It's too controversial.

Listen, I'm not going to stand by and allow for another 35 million babies to die. I'm not going to stand by and allow my party to say that we're not going to respect the sovereignty of the United States while we give away money to foreign countries. The—you know, I go to work in the morning in the winter time, and I see Vietnam veterans, and indeed veterans of all wars, lying on grates in Washington, D.C., while we give $18 billion to the International Monetary Fund. Look, if people out there in America want hope and they want somebody who is going to be their advocate, I'm going to be their advocate in this election....

KING: We're going to...

SMITH: ... I promise you that.

KING: We're going to take a break and come back with some more with Senator Bob Smith making an historic announcement here tonight. He'll do it on the floor of the Senate tomorrow at 2:15.

We'll be right back.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. TRENT LOTT (R-MS), MAJORITY LEADER: I don't think he needs to do this. I think— and I'm disappointed in the decision he's apparently made. I think it comes out of frustration. It's very tough now for some of our candidates seeking the Republican nomination when you—they look at their polling numbers, they don't look too good and they look for other options.

PAT BUCHANAN ®, PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: When you've got a man as conservative and principled as Bob Smith, who is on the verge of walking away from the Republican Party, I think the problem is not with Senator Smith, who's a good man and a fine senator. I think the problem might be right here in Washington with the Republican establishment.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: We're back. Our guest is Senator Bob Smith with a historic announcement here tonight.

Jim Nicholson, the chairman of the Republican Party, was invited to appear on this program and declined. But he did say this in a letter to Senator Smith, and we'd like to have the senator comment. Here's what the head of his party said, the chairman of his party:

"I believe this would be a serious mistake for you personally with only a marginal political impact and a counterproductive one at that. This would not be a case for the party leaving you, Bob, but rather of you leaving your party. Far from turning away from the conservative themes we both share, the party has championed them and become America's majority party by doing so. I truly believe, Bob, that your 1 percent standing in the New Hampshire primary doesn't reflect Republican primary voters' rejection of your message, but rather its redundancy. I hope you do not confuse the success of our shared message with your own failure as its messenger."

By the way, we heard Pat Buchanan knock that statement. Steve Forbes also said the Republican Party should stop running people out of the party and go back to our principles. What's your comment on the Nicholson letter?

SMITH: Well, let me, first of all, say a sincere thank you to Steve Forbes and Pat Buchanan and Gary Bauer for the nice things they said, not necessarily about me, but about principle and integrity. They're right. And it's unfortunate that Mr. Nicholson, whom I spoke to privately off the record and indicated to him that I was going to do this, and the response that I got for the heads-up in private, confidentially, which he agreed to keep confidential, was a press release so that my house was staked out for two or three days while I was on vacation in New Hampshire.

So you know, it's unfortunate. But look, that's the kind of treatment you're going to get.

Here's a guy that's 99 percent in—in terms of support of the Republican platform, 99 percent. And the leader—I heard him talk about 1 percent in the polls. There's nobody, including the leader, including anybody else who's criticizing me, that has been as strongly as supportive of the Republican platform and the principles in it than I have.

KING: Would you say you're disappointed in Mr. Nicholson?

SMITH: No, I'm not disappointed. I'm not surprised at all. Look, this is the establishment, Larry. They're interested in poll numbers. They're interested in how much money you have. They're interested in your name recognition. That's what they're interested in.

They've walked away from the principles. Get the message. Hello, out there. Listen up. This is what's wrong. And I say to the people of America, let's change it, let's send them a message out there, but this is wrong, this is not what it's about.

Let me ask you, Henry Clay, John C. Calhoun, Daniel Webster from the state of New Hampshire and Massachusetts, what political party were they? Who cares? They stood up for what they believed in. Webster, "Nothing more powerful than the truth." We remember them as being great people who stood up for what they believed in, not for their political parties.

This is what the problem is. Washington warned us against political parties. And so you're going to see the status quo, you're going to see the people in the party fight. Of course, they're going to fight. They're going to fight hard.
KING: Let's get a call in for Senator Smith. Panguith, Utah, hello.

CALLER: Hello. Senator Smith?

SMITH: Yes, sir.

CALLER: I'm wondering if you did not learn the lesson of 1992 when Ross Perot, a conservative individual, decided to run independent and assured the election of Bill Clinton. It seems to me that all you're going to do is help to ensure the election of Al Gore, a very liberal person.

SMITH: Well, you know what I'm going to ensure? I'm going to ensure that the American people have a choice in this election. I'm giving the election to the American people. I didn't realize that George Bush was the designated winner. I think the voters have something to say about it. And I'm going to tell you, no vote is ever wasted if you vote from your heart and you vote for the person that you believe in. When a vote is wasted is when you don't vote because you don't like any of the candidates because they're not reflecting your views or you...

KING: What if—I'm sorry. Go ahead, Bob.

SMITH: No, that's all right. Go ahead, Larry.

KING: Would it bother you, though, say there's an election result and Al Gore beats George W.

Bush and you got enough votes to siphon it off to make Gore the winner?

SMITH: How about if Al Gore wins and George Bush gets enough to siphon off so that I can't win? See, this is the presumption. This is what it is. This is the media. This is the consultants. This is the pollsters.

Pollsters don't vote. People vote. I'm telling you, this will be a strong race. I'm going take a principled campaign. I'm not going to be into this party infighting and name calling.

KING: Are you—are you going to be able to raise money to run against the onslaught that's coming?

SMITH: It's always money. They'll have a hundred thousand, hundred million...

KING: That's the name of the game.

SMITH: No, it's not the name of the game. It's part of the game, but it's not the name of it. There are principled people out there by the millions who are going to come to my campaign. And I'm inviting you to do it.

It's pretty easy, 202--USA-FOR-BOB or www.smithforpresident.org.

KING: Springfield, Oregon for Senator Bob Smith of New Hampshire. Hello.

CALLER: Hi, Larry.

KING: Hi.

CALLER: Senator, what influence, if any, has the religious right's hold on the Republican Party had to do with your decision to leave?

SMITH: Well, I'm a Catholic, so I'm not sure what the question is. I believe that every single individual—whether they be the religious right, the left, atheist, Catholics, Mormons, whatever their religion is—they have a right to participate in the political process and I'll fight to the death of for that right. I'm not afraid of any group being involved in the political process.

I think that it's important that we go out there and talk about issues. See, this is what's happening in politics today. It's the next—it's the next Senate victory or the next House victory. It's electing more people with R's next to their name and we're forgetting principles.

KING: Do you expect to be shunned by fellow party members on the Senate floor?

SMITH: I don't know, Larry. It doesn't matter to me. I have made this decision. I've spoken to several members who have been very gracious to me personally. I think they know where I've been coming from on issues.

I've stood up for the party. The party platform is pro-life. I'm pro-life. I've been a leader on that issue. The party platform is pro-Second Amendment. I've been the leader on that. The party has walked away from guns. They've walked away—not the party, but some of the leaders have walked away from guns. They've walked away from life. They've walked away from sovereignty. I'm not going to do that. I'm going to give the voters a chance and a choice.

KING: One other thing. On INSIDE POLITICS today Karen Brown of WMUR-TV said the following: "Many New Hampshire Republicans are very angry at Smith because they did so much to help him win the Senate in 1996."

SMITH: Well, let me just say to the people of New Hampshire, Larry, I'm the same guy you elected 15 years ago. I've stood up for principle. I've been there for you on all of the issues. And I'm going to be the same person. That doesn't change because I have an "I" next to my name.

Isn't it interesting that Bob Smith yesterday with an "R" next to his name was a principled guy but because I've moved to the I now I'm unprincipled? See, that's what's wrong with politics. It's exactly what George Washington warned us against in political parties.

KING: Senator, we'll be following you throughout the year. Thank you so much.

SMITH: Thank you, Larry, for letting me have a chance to be here.

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