CRANSTON -- Clatter. Clatter. Thud.

The new sounds of my life are the frames of lawn signs bouncing in the back of my car, Elizabeth Roberts said with a laugh as she darted from one campaign stop to another in her otherwise soundless hybrid electric car.

Roberts had begun the day at her kitchen counter, making an easy-to-chew yogurt and peanut butter sandwich for her 14-year-old daughter, with newly tightened braces, to take to school for lunch.

Next she drove Nora to the private Moses Brown School in Providence a daily routine that Roberts says she relishes because its the time I know I always see her and get a chance to catch up with her. (Older daughter Kathleen is in college.)

Then she was off to a Red Cross-sponsored breakfast for community heroes, a newspaper editorial board interview, a benefit roast of Providence Mayor David N. Cicilline at Rhodes on the Pawtuxet, in Cranston, a house party in her honor in North Smithfield, and finally to a fundraiser for her labor-backed colleague in the state Senate, John Tassoni.

At Tassonis event, Roberts, in dark brown slacks, burnt orange jacket and a smidgen of Revlon No. 235 lipstick on her deceivingly young 49-year-old face, got to literally kick up one of her Anne Klein heels.

Wife. Mother. Director of a family-owned real-estate land-management company. State senator. Now she was in her newest role: Candidate for lieutenant governor.

You know I want to fill Charlies shoes, she said of Charles J. Fogarty, the term-limited incumbent she hopes to replace. Its true and its a hard thing to do, but with a pair of high heels I know I can.

A short time later, when Bill Kavanaugh, a friend of the friend who hosted the North Smithfield party, confronted her with this out-of-the-box question What are you going to do for me? she earnestly launched into her favorite campaign topic.

My big issue is actually affordable health insurance, she said. You read a lot about the legislature and it is not always very good things that you read about the legislature. But I have been a state senator for 10 years and, I think, making a difference.

She takes particular pride in three bills she either cosponsored or shepherded along as chairwoman of the Senate Committee on Health and Human Services and co-chairwoman of the joint House-Senate health oversight committee.

One created an office within state government for a health-insurance commissioner. Another shook up the board of Blue Cross & Blue Shield of Rhode Island and reinforced, in law, the nonprofit, tax-exempt insurers obligation to provide affordable and accessible health insurance.

The third provided a framework for the state to insure the two big health insurers, Blue Cross and UnitedHealthcare, against high-cost claims resulting from, for example, open-heart surgery or premature birth. The goal: A reduction of 40 percent in the premiums charged small-group employers.

Roberts said Republican Governor Carcieri suggested and we agreed with him that some of the excess profits of United, in particular, could be used to subsidize premiums for small businesses really suffering under the strain of the cost.

But the new law still sits on a shelf waiting for the legislature to designate a financing source. The estimated annual cost: $12 million