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  Alex Sink's running mate Rod Smith: 'We're going to win Dixie County'
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ContributorQbanito 
Last EditedQbanito  Oct 16, 2010 11:22am
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CategoryNews
AuthorAbel Harding
MediaNewspaper - Florida Times-Union
News DateWednesday, October 13, 2010 05:20:00 PM UTC0:0
DescriptionWhere's Rod Smith these days?

Ask Alex Sink's running mate, a former state Senator and long-time prosecutor, and he'll rattle off the name of rural Florida towns most down-state residents have never heard of.

"We've been in Macclenny, Starke and Live Oak. We had a big crowd in Chiefland the other day," Smith during an interview after a Jacksonville appearance.

Those small towns don't have media outlets that award Smith widespread coverage like that afforded to state Rep. Jennifer Carroll, the other candidate for lieutenant governor, who has campaigned in some of the state's largest media markets. But they are Smith country.

He served as the state attorney for Florida's Eighth Judicial Circuit, a district whose most populous city is the college town of Gainesville. He's well known there, mostly for his prosecution of Danny Rolling, the serial killer convicted of first-degree murder in the slaying of five students at the University of Florida.

He later ran for state Senate, serving six years in the Legislature as one of the few Democrats in a region dominated by Republicans. In 2006, he failed in a bid for governor, losing in the Democratic primary to former U.S. Rep. Jim Davis, who went on to lose to Gov. Charlie Crist.

These days, he's drawing on the connections he made over the years, persuading Sheriffs to sign on with the Sink campaign, a difficult task in counties that have shifted to the Republican party over the last few decades.

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