Former New Hampshire Republican senator Bob Smith made it official yesterday: He is running to return to the U.S. Senate in 2010 - from Florida.

Smith, 68, said in an interview yesterday that he had planned to retire when he moved to the Sunshine State seven years ago, but he said he's grown increasingly distressed watching the news and decided that he "can't stand by and watch what's happening to our country and our party."

A former two-term senator who paired fierce conservatism with occasionally quirky causes, Smith briefly left the GOP for the Taxpayers Party to mount a quixotic run for president in 1999 and, three years later, lost his Senate seat to fellow Republican John Sununu in 2002.

Smith announced his candidacy via a video posted online in which he speaks directly to the camera, with a picture of the Old Man of the Mountain and a white eagle statue in the background.

"If we win here, we send a message to the rest of the country," Smith said. "Florida sends that message to the rest of the country that our party is not going to go to the left, our party is going to go back to the conservative roots, and our country is not going to lose its liberties to the Democrat left administration that is taking over our personal liberties."

In the race for this Senate seat, now held by retiring Republican Sen. Mel Martinez, Smith likely faces an uphill battle against a well-known and relatively popular incumbent, Florida Gov. Charlie Crist.

Smith touts the fact that he has 12 years in the Senate under his belt, years he says he can carry with him to Florida and use to become a more senior senator than a first-timer. Smith also paints himself as the true conservative in the race.

"This will be a classic battle in my view between a liberal-to-moderate Republican and a conservative Republican," Smith said (himself being the latter). The question for voters, he said: "Do you want an Arlen Specter Republican or do you want a Ronald Reagan Republican?"

A former teacher and Navy veteran elected to Congress in 1984, when Reagan was president, Smith above all championed prisoners of war. He often touted his consistent conservatism on issues such as taxes and abortion.

Smith also took on offbeat issues, such as calling for retirement homes for chimpanzees used in government research and, after Sept. 11, 2001, calling for pilots to be allowed to carry guns.

To Smith's thinking, the Republican Party went astray in recent years with deficit spending.

Meanwhile, he said, he hates what he sees as the federal government intervention in the private sector, asking if "government gets involved in stopping business from failing, then where do you draw the line?"

In the video, which was viewed by nearly 600 people yesterday, Smith says this: "I want to appeal directly in this campaign to those of you out there who are really frustrated, sick and tired of what's happening with our party moving to the left and our country being taken over, our private sector being taken over by the government," he said in the online video.

"You're fed up and you want to get back to the basic tenets of the United States Constitution."

As in Florida, New Hampshire will have an open seat in 2010, since Republican Sen. Judd Gregg has said he will retire.

Smith said he thought about returning to New Hampshire, but he ultimately decided against it.

He referred to his 2002 loss to Sununu, whose father, former governor John H. Sununu, is now chairman of the state Republican Party.

Many Republican activists hope Sununu will run in 2010.

"I don't want to go back and reopen old party wounds. I want the party to start off new," Smith said.

Smith filed an exploratory committee to run for the Florida seat in 2004, but he said his run this year is different.

"Oh yeah, much different. That's really misunderstood. I didn't really run in 2004," he said, noting that he never actually filed papers with the state.

Smith also downplayed his departure from the Republican Party in 1999, saying he was trying to jolt party officials into realizing that they were leading the party away from its core, Reagan principles.

"What I was really trying to say to the party officials was, 'Look, if you keep doing this . . . you will pay the price,' " he said. "And I was proven correct."