MicroCampaigns

Michael Smith has a very interesting idea: MicroCampaigns – a Political Force?

Imagine hundreds of candidates for the 2008 Presidential primaries. Instead of just the few insiders with big money, envision each state with several local candidates, or dozens of candidates pitching specific topics to specific constituencies.

Michael is running for the Republican nomination for President in 2008. Yeah, he's out of the gate pretty early, but what choice does he have. His relatively unknown status and lack of Big Money connections actually plays into his MicroCampaigns idea.

I can’t imagine finding the resources to take my campaign national – I’ve always figured that if I could get one delegate from Oregon, and use that credibility to represent a message to the Republican National Convention, I’d have been successful for a political novice with negligible resources. But if hundreds adopted my strategy simultaneously, what might be the effect?

What indeed!?! Consider how national presidential campaigns are currently run and have been for a very long time. One or two or three national candidates using lots of money (which had to come from somewhere!) build national campaigns with staffs and offices in every state. One or sometimes two candidates walk out after the primary with either all or most of that state's delegates and proceed on to the next state where they replicate the whole thing. Then come time for the national convention it's more often than not a large dittohead convention because most everyone is there to represent the same candidate.

What might national party conventions be like if instead of hundreds of delegates all belonging to one candidate (many chosen from among loyal supporters of said candidate) there were hundreds of delegates belonging to hundreds of candidates?

I imagine that the biggest and most obvious change would be that instead of being a carefully choreographed coronation of which ever candidate (along with his/her powerful backers) it would instead be an actual nominating convention which would potentially present a vastly greater chance for the grassroots to actually make an impact and guide the entire thing.

It's an intriguing idea.