As I rifled through my computer today in order to delete my cookies so as to be able to vote for coach Paul Rhoads for the third time today at coachoftheyear.com, I was struck by a thought.

“This is the future of government.”

I am not referring to the corruption or the multiple voting, as we all know that Chicago and New York have mastered those ideas over the last century. The future of government, instead, lies in online “consensus” building.

Out of my idea comes a prediction: A candidate will run and win on the idea that he or she will enact the will of the people as conveyed through a select online forum within the next two decades.

Bold, I know, but let’s frame up what this self-dubbed “SurveyMonkey” candidacy might look like.

The basic tenet of this candidacy is that the will of the people will be determined by collecting the sentiment of constituents via an online survey utility — i.e. SurveyMonkey. Precautions will need to be taken in order to assure the sanctity of each vote, as well as the security of the system itself. With the groundwork laid out, we can take a look toward elections.

The primary objectives of any candidate attempting to get elected are to:

1. Secure the base
2. Attract moderates

The beauty of the SurveyMonkey candidacy is that the candidate can throw these objectives out the window and merely focus on raising awareness of his unique approach. Slogans such as “You do the thinking, so I don’t have to,” “Some people are hiding the fact that they listen to polling data — I vote on it,” and “Become the Puppet Master” offer an enticing pitch while conveying the unique nature of the campaign.

Once elected, the candidacy becomes even more genius. As the self-styled channel of populist grievance, the newly appointed official can sit back and enjoy the goings-on of his governmental body. The candidate must merely present questions to which his constituents can respond in a yes or no format.

All the free time found when other legislators are busy synthesizing legislation and interacting with party bosses can be used to take up additional hobbies in order to further endear the candidate toward his constituents.

Additionally, corruption is exceedingly less likely with the SurveyMonkey candidate, because personal choice is taken out the decision-making equation.

When re-election time comes around, the populist strategy reveals its finest trick. Since all of the votes cast over the course of the candidate’s term were done by majority rules, no partisan complaints can be leveled. Complaints, instead, will be reduced to minor claims of negligence, wasting money and other related ideas that seem to have little bearing on the outcome of elections.

When the victorious election results come in, the candidate can start the cycle all over again. Truly representative democracy has scored a huge victory.

In fact, only the ability of public policymakers to make truly difficult and unpopular decisions to benefit the country as a whole will be adversely effected, and that ability has been in hibernation for so long that even coach Rhoads would be unable to resurrect it.