It is a sad commentary on the state of the New Hampshire Republican Party that they have no candidate for governor and their best-known candidate to challenge a sitting U.S. Senator is a man who succeeded in making a mockery of his own political career before voters mercifully removed him from office more than a dozen years ago.

It is doubtful that New Hampshire has ever seen a larger ego than former U.S. Sen. Bob Smith, whose days in the Senate ended in defeat at the hands of John E. Sununu in the 2002 Republican primary.

That was after Smith decided to seek the Republican nomination for president in 2000 as a favorite son candidate in the first-in-the-nation New Hampshire Primary. He had, after all, been elected to the Senate twice from the Granite State.

Except that he wasn’t really a favorite son, and his candidacy went nowhere.

But Smith was a guy who thought of himself as serious presidential timber and seemed determined to shop around until he found someone – anyone – who shared his view.

He withdrew from the Republican Party and sought the presidential nomination of the Taxpayers’ Party. Thanks, but no thanks, they said.

Smith then proclaimed himself an independent, hoping to find political salvation among the unaffiliated. That didn’t take, either.

Eventually, Smith rejoined the GOP, but his motives for doing so were suspect among party loyalists. Smith’s return to the fold followed the death of Rhode Island Sen. John Chafee, which created a vacancy as chairman of the Senate Committee on the Environment and Public Works. Ever the opportunist, Smith claimed that chairmanship.

But the party faithful never again trusted Smith, and many backed Sununu when the House member successfully challenged Smith in the 2002 Republican primary.

Smith has been selling real estate in Florida since that loss, but he and his wife have kept a home in the Lakes Region town of Tuftonboro, thus making him still eligible to seek election to the seat he once held.

Smith was never much more than a back-bencher during his terms in the U.S. House, and in the Senate he was never considered a policy workhouse in the mold of a Judd Gregg. He had Gordon Humprey’s conservativism, but lacked Humphrey’s compassion. Smith carved out a modest name for himself on MIA-POW issues, but that was about the extent of his effective reach. What he really stood for was being Bob Smith.

He was a conservative during the Reagan era, which means he was in the right state at the right time with the right message.

Times have changed, but we can be sure about one thing: Bob Smith’s decision to seek the Republican nomination has nothing to do with New Hampshire and everything to do with Bob Smith and his nose for opportunity.

A few months ago, he proclaimed himself out of the race. Now he thinks Obamacare has made Sen. Jeanne Shaheen vulnerable enough for him to take a run at her seat. Smith, after all, has never really stopped trying to return to the Senate. He made aborted runs in 2004 and 2010 in Florida, but pulled out when he polled poorly. It wouldn’t be a surprise if he turns tail and runs from New Hampshire the minute he figures out that campaign donors are not going to throw money at his feet at the mere mention of his name.

If he does, the Republican Party in New Hampshire will be better off for it.

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