Galen Scott
gscott@weatherforddemocrat.com
Tracey Smith, a former Metroplex television and newspaper reporter, stopped in Weatherford Wednesday to publicize his campaign for election to the U.S. House of Representatives.
Smith will face Incumbent Congresswoman Kay Granger, a Republican and former mayor of Fort Worth in the race for Texas’ District 12 seat Washington.
Speaking to reporters and a handful of supporters in front of his grandparent’s former home along South Main Street, Smith said he is upset with the direction the United States has taken, especially since George Bush became president in 2000.
Smith said the United States won the Iraq war three years ago and that it’s time to leave. He favors sending some troops currently stationed in Iraq to Afghanistan, and bringing other troops home altogether.
“I heard one Congressman during the Petraeus hearings say, if people want us to do more to stop the war, we need to have a veto-proof majority,” Smith said. “So I’m doing my part.”
In addition to criticizing the course of the Iraq war, Smith attacked Congressional Republicans and the Bush Administration for vetoing legislation tied to more children’s health insurance.
He said the Republican Party has become the protector of the “haves” against the “have nots.”
“I think if a Democrat is ever going to have a chance to win this seat, it’s going to be this year,” he said.
Part of Smith’s optimism stems from Democrat Dan Barrett’s special runoff election win over GOP opponent Mark Shelton in Fort Worth’s District 97, a district traditionally represented by Republicans.
“That gave me hope that people are willing to change the way they vote,” Smith said. “It’s been a 70 percent Republican district for many years, and here a Democrat wins it. I’ve heard from other people that they’ve been voting Republican for years, at all levels — local, state, national — and they’re not at all happy with the government they’ve been voting for.”
Smith, 59, currently operates his own real estate brokerage in Fort Worth. After attending school in Corpus Christi, Smith worked as a reporter for the Dallas Times Herald in the early 1970s. He returned to Fort Worth in 1978, and took a job reporting for KDFW-TV Channel 4.
Though he has never held an elected office, Smith is no newcomer to Texas politics. In addition to ongoing state party activism, Smith served as Al Gore’s Tarrant County campaign manager and was a national party delegate during Gore’s first unsuccessful presidential bid in 1988.
Like Gore, Smith believes global warming is a man-made problem.
“For people to deny that global warming, which is caused by excessive air pollution, is a problem, is just hiding your head in the sand,” he said.
Smith plans to attend the Parker County Active Democrats candidate forum on Monday, and a similar event in Wise County Jan. 29. Monday’s meeting is scheduled to take place at the Twentieth Century Club in Weatherford at 7 p.m.
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