I was impressed when Florida Democrat Kendrick Meek became the first U.S. Senate candidate to qualify for the Florida ballot by petition. Instead of dropping ten large to buy his way onto the ballot, Meek got his name in the running the old fashioned way — by collecting over 140,000 signatures, which wasn’t exactly an easy thing to do. Kudos to Meek and he’s got my attention; let’s see if he can hold it.

Now, local architect Mark Smith, Republican, is throwing his hat into the ring for Sarasota County Commissioner and is attempting to match Meek’s mighty moves by collecting enough signatures (I think he needs 2,000 by May 14) from registered Sarasota County voters to get his name on the ballot.

photo courtesy of www.votemarksmith.com

Signing the petition doesn’t mean the voter endorses Smith’s run for office, and doesn’t mean the voter plans to, will, or has to vote for Smith — it simply means that the voter believes in that form of democracy — i.e., that it shouldn’t cost so damn much to run for political office. I tend to agree with that.

Smith is running in District 4 and if he wins, he’d be kicking 12-year incumbent Nora Patterson to the curb. I’m not picking any sides in this race — but I like the fact that Smith is eschewing the money route. Paying his way onto the ballot would cost about $4,500 and though I don’t know all his reasons for going the signature route instead, I like the general idea of people not throwing money around unnecessarily, and this makes me think (hope!) that Smith might act similarly with taxpayer dollars if elected.

If you want to fill out the petition and bring Smith one step closer to seeing his name on the ballot, you can download the form here. For information on how to return the form or to have one of Smith’s volunteers pick it up, visit Smith’s campaign website www.votemarksmith.com.