David Smith said that "getting his name out" as a candidate for the 2^nd Plymouth Congressional District, representing Wareham, Carver, and three precincts in Bourne, is the toughest part of the race.

He admits that he hasn't got the name recognition or the following of his opponent, incumbent Susan Williams Gifford, who is seeking a fourth term.  But he said the key difference between him and Gifford was his "accessibility," and he has been heartened by the trust that he sees in people's faces as he does his old-fashioned, door-to-door campaigning.

"The choices are a person you can trust and are comfortable with, who won't be a State Rep forever, or you can choose a person with experience," Smith said, candidly. "If you want the latter, then I'm not the person."

Born and raised in Los Angeles, Smith was drafted into the Army out of U.C.L.A., and then returned home from a post in Germany to a career in the travel industry.  He met his first wife while running a tour-bus company in San Francisco, and they raised their four children in the San Francisco Bay area where Smith for many years ran a travel agency.  He is now remarried.

Since retiring to Massachusetts in 2001, Smith has become active in local government and community initiatives. He was a representative to Falmouth Town Meeting for six years, and he organized a neighborhood association to save a working cranberry bog on town-owned land. Although ultimately unsuccessful, the measure sparked Smith's interest in providing open space through small-scale farming rather than just the protection of land solely through the often expensive conservation process.

"Most open space is provided through conservation, but the problem with conservation is the costs of buying the land and maintaining it," Smith said.  "Whereas small farms provide open space, mostly keep it open to the public for walking and other recreation, and pay taxes.  Not only does it not cost us any money, but we make money off of it."

Related to this, he advocated seeking a "settlement" of whether or not the cranberry industry has a major impact on nitrogen pollution.  With both environmentalists and cranberry farmers promoting scientific evidence to strengthen or relax nitrogen, he said that there is "no truth" that has been decided.

He currently promotes access to open space through the Friends of the Community Pathway, one of the many committees and boards in which he has become involved since moving to Wareham in 2007: "at one point I think I was on five or six at the same time!" he joked, listing his membership in the Charter Review Committee, Community and Economic Development Authority, and others.

Smith said that all of these responsibilities have given him insight into what is and is not working in the state.

As a board member of the Wareham Friends of the Elderly, he said that state cuts to transportation services, Medicare cuts, and the rising cost of medical services and prescription drugs have greatly impacted the elderly, a constituency that he said faces "a lack of respect" from the state.

While he said that most people he has talked to have been encouraged by the state's mandatory health care, he faulted the system for not reducing healthcare costs.

To pay for such benefits, Smith suggested a more equitable state tax system.  "Those that can [pay] aren't paying their fair share," he said.  "The poor should pay less, and rich people pay more."

And while in favor of the support provided by government programs, Smith said that these programs need to be better enforced.  For instance, he said that while unemployment benefits provide a valuable safety net, he said that people need to take more individual responsibility to access that privilege...a view he attributes to his economic philosophy as that of a "Roosevelt Democrat," which he defined as "giving people that are down a hand up, but once they're up, then butting out."

It's also a philosophy that he applies to his own political goals, describing himself as "the definition of a term-limited politician."

"I think that I can help people," Smith says simply.  "I'm 67-years old... I just want to spend the next 2-4 years helping out the district."