JOHNSTON COUNTY -- In the race to succeed state Sen. Fred Smith, voters must choose between Republican David Rouzer and Democrat Kay Carroll.

Rouzer, a 36-year-old resident of the McGee’s Crossroads community, is a former aid to U.S. Sens. Jesse Helms and Elizabeth Dole. He owns a Raleigh-based consulting firm focused on farm issues. Carroll owns Carroll Pharmacy in Smithfield and has served on the Johnston County Board of Education since 1992.

Both men tout their political experience.

Rouzer, for example, touts his role in crafting the tobacco buyout that is paying dollars to growers and quota holders. “I’ve had a lot of experience fighting tough legislative battles like this one, and I want to continue making government work for the people instead of people working for the government,” he said.

Carroll said his tenure on the school board had increased his understanding of growth issues and budgeting. “I’ve been exposed to the inequities of the state passing legislation without funding the legislation it’s passing,” he said. “With that kind of knowledge, I hope to remedy some of that. I hope people will understand that I’ve been involved closely with the issues here in Johnston County and that I have the experience and work ethic needed to go to Raleigh.”

On the issues, both men said they agreed on at least one thing: Roads and bridges in Johnston County could use some work.

Rouzer said the state needed to get its spending priorities straight. “Government spending is out of control, up 80 percent over a decade,” he said. “That outstrips inflation and population growth. And yet roads and bridges are no better than before.”

Carroll said state lawmakers needed to explore new ways to pay for transportation needs, especially road building. Pointing to the recent deaths of a Princeton High student and his friend, Carroll said the state needed to act sooner rather than later.

“Unfortunately in this county, too many young people have been having wrecks and getting killed,” he said. “I think some of that has to do with the heavy volume of traffic on these narrow, two-lane country roads that we haven’t yet looked at widening to make them safer.”

“We also need to find out why, when bad things like this are happening, counties around us are getting twice as much base funding for transportation,” Carroll added. “We need to be taking a closer look at these secondary country roads and how to improve them.”

On the economy, Rouzer said events of recent weeks underscored his campaign’s central theme. “What I’ve been talking about all along is that we need to get back to the basics,” he said. “It’s kind of like when a football team goes errant and isn’t tackling the way it needs to. I think government needs to get back to the fundamentals, and we need to make it more responsible to the people.”

Rouzer said government was hurting his constituents where it mattered most: at the pump, in the doctor’s office and in the classroom. “There is more government involvement in those areas than in any others,” he said.

Rouzer said that, among other things, he would support suspending the state gas tax while drilling for oil off of North Carolina’s coast. On health care, Rouzer wants to make it easier for individuals to buy their own insurance, and on education, he wants to get failed government programs out of the classroom.

“As [President Ronald] Reagan said, government is the problem, not the solution,” Rouzer said. “We need to get everything on the table and get government out of the way.”

For Carroll, rescuing the floundering economy would have to involve, on some level, a restructuring of the state’s workforce. “Economic development and growth have to be based on the educational foundation of our citizens,” he said. “I’ve been working on that for 16 years. It’s part and parcel to being able to attract industry.”

Carroll said he hoped to be a point person for Johnston County in recruiting new industry. But he expressed equal concern for protecting the county’s rural character and farm heritage.

“Agriculture is a big economic part of our district,” Carroll said of District 12, which encompasses all of Johnston County and western Wayne County. “We need to help [farmers] develop markets and make sure we keep markets available to them and look to grow new markets as we get into the global economy here,” he said.

“As we grow, we need to also be sure that we look at the rural character of Johnston and Wayne counties and make sure that as we develop new land-use plans, that we blend the growth with the agricultural and rural development so that we don’t lose our rural character and we don’t gobble up good farmland,” he continued. “We need to make sure that the people of District 12 understand and that we educate everyone on the economic value agriculture still provides for Johnston and Wayne counties.”