Presidential candidate

gets word out at Deschutes Fair

Even though the election is still two years away, Michael Smith is hitting the campaign trail.

The Corvallis Republican, a formally declared candidate for president in 2008, will spend most of next week at the Deschutes County Fair, manning a folding plastic table and spreading the word about his longshot campaign.

“I’ll pass out a few cards and fliers and accost anyone who comes off the midway or the vendor area,” Smith said.

He’ll also have some promotional polo shirts with him, emblazoned with the slogan “I like Mike” and his Web address, smithforpresident.com.

“It’s sort of based on the old ‘I like Ike’ logo,” he explained.

Not exactly a media blitz, but Smith’s five-day run starting Wednesday at the fairgrounds in Redmond represents his most ambitious foray yet outside the friendly confines of his hometown.

The Hewlett-Packard employee officially kicked off his campaign with a fund-raising dance at the Benton County Fairgrounds in May. Since then he’s made a number of appearances at the Saturday Farmers’ Market in downtown Corvallis, and early this month he walked in the Philomath Frolic & Rodeo Parade. He’s also done radio and television interviews with stations in Portland and Eugene.

Billing himself as a moderate Republican, Smith says he’d like to see his party return to its traditional focus on small government, individual liberties and fiscal conservatism. He hopes to send a message that moderates like himself want the GOP to cut its ties to the religious right and stop wasting time on socially conservative causes such as banning abortion and gay marriage.

To get that message across, he figures he needs to win enough votes in the 2008 primary elections to take a delegate or two to the Republican National Convention. While Smith says he doesn’t expect to actually win the nomination, getting to the convention would give him a seat at the party’s table.

But first he has to get on the ballot.

In Oregon, the surest way to do that is to gather 1,000 valid signatures from registered Republican voters in each of the state’s five congressional districts. Candidates aiming for the 2008 ballot can’t start circulating petitions until late next year.

Smith’s plan is to work county fairs and regional events such as the Pendleton Roundup to raise his profile in far-flung parts of the state.

But he’s also started to toy with the notion of trying to get his name on the ballot in other parts of the country.

He was recently approached by a legislative candidate from New Hampshire offering to pay Smith’s filing fee to enter that state’s primary, traditionally the launchpad for a presidential bid.

“It’s the sort of place where, without a lot of resources, you could go out and bang on doors and maybe have some influence on the process,” he said. “It’s a relatively low hurdle compared to having to gather signatures or have an organization on the ground.”

That said, Smith acknowledges his campaign coffers are far from full. As of June 30, the most recent federal reporting deadline, he’d raised about $3,000 — including $2,000 of his own money — and spent about $2,200.

“I think, realistically, Oregon is as far as I can focus at this point,” Smith said.

“If there were interest elsewhere, and that interest could be translated into some monetary support, yeah, I’d look at some other states. But I have to play wait and see now.”

In the meantime, Smith continues to mount his modest “stealth campaign” at the local level, talking to voters about what’s on their minds.

“The Iraq war seems to be a very prevalent concern,” he said. “People want to talk about health care, people want to talk about taxes. One lady wanted to be minister of cats.”

And while he might never be a household name, Smith said his persistence is beginning to pay off with a measure of notoriety in his mid-valley base.

“I’d say maybe one in three people now are starting to say, ‘Oh, yeah, I’ve heard about you,’” he said. “I still get a certain number of people who say, ‘President of what?’ But I feel like I am starting to get some recognition.”