Think back to our recent national election. Two unlikely candidates emerged and America elected a person who was virtually unknown 10 years ago to become the 44th President of the United States. Around the same time, as the 2008 campaign entered the home stretch, Michael Bloomberg decided to challenge the statute limiting him to two terms as New York’s mayor.

Widely regarded as doing a first-rate job, Mayor Mike cited the dire economic straits Gotham faces as the reason to let him run again to remain the leader of the nation’s financial capital. He said his experience as mayor and as a business leader made him uniquely qualified to help guide New York, as it tries to win the economic war being fought against a background of bubbles, chicanery and financial meltdowns.

As he makes that case this coming year, a lot of people will disagree, believing a suspension of term limits to let Mayor Bloomberg run again is a bad idea. But in late ‘08, the City Council voted to allow it, so New Yorkers can now look ahead to a mayoral campaign year culminating on November 3rd. On that night, we will all see if an entrenched, powerful, rich person, who can readily command attention from his position and his purse, will be re-elected and, if so, by how much.

Between now and then, he is likely to have active opposition – including well-intentioned believers in good government and aspirants to the office, along with lots of people who like to fight City Hall, both figuratively and literally.

New Tools Available
And that brings us one good, relatively new reason why it may be time to dispose of term limits. Today’s technology will actually enable those who want to defend term limits to mount effective opposition to a third Bloomberg term. They have tools available to them today that are powerful, inexpensive and weren’t in widespread use back when term limits was enacted. Let’s take a look at some numbers that make the case from just one perspective. Below is a table showing estimated participation in only a few of the hundreds of online communities and social networking sites. Participation in those human connection enablers now totals in the hundreds of millions of people.

In addition to these sites, there is Twitter. As reported in The Wall Street Journal back in October, research firm comScore, Inc., estimates this short-message social networking site stood last August at more than one million unique visitors from the U.S. – up five-fold in one year. Given its continuing rapid growth, it is safe to assume many more users will be sending “tweets” this year, without even counting the difficult-to-gauge number of people sending their 140 characters or less to and from cell phones.

Linking Like-Minded People
Clearly, social networking sites offer some of the most economical ways to build lists, deliver messages and develop connections among like-minded people – often very engagingly and using innovative campaign styles. There are also other low-cost tools for drafting and sending mass and targeted e-mails, for deploying inexpensive predictive-dialing telephone systems with recorded messages, and for creating persuasively-written blogs and entertaining videos.

And while communications by and for those running for office will still use traditional envelope stuffing, door knocking, advertising and media relations, they will likely use still more of the newer tools. These “net-roots” techniques have now shown they can enable activists to raise awareness and money, making sure an office-seeker’s messages are presented well and targeted carefully, so they can be widely seen and heard by large numbers of people, and on a modest budget.

Come November, we will all learn if and how all of that works against a well-heeled, well-connected, well-regarded incumbent. If Mayor Bloomberg wins again, the results may reasonably suggest the voting public doesn’t necessarily want term limits, if office holders are seen as doing the job. And if he loses, it will show that technology can trump term limits – the once-heralded political field-leveler whose time may well have come and gone.

Comments? Please click here to send them me.

January 12, 2009