Campaign Cash: Edwards Leads on ActBlue
By Leslie Wayne--New York Times Blog----
As the presidential candidates go through their last round of second-quarter fund-raising that ends June 30, the numbers are clicking at ActBlue, an Internet site that has already collected $23 million for Democratic office-seekers.
ActBlue seeks be to the campaign fundraising world what PayPal is to bill paying: an Internet mechanism for making payments. Rather than attending dinners or flying around the country, candidates get money by simply posting their information on ActBlue or linking to it through their own campaign website.
Individuals can also become their own Democratic fund-raisers by creating online ActBlue pages to solicit donations for their favorite candidates.
“We know how fund-raising is going, minute by minute,” said Matt DeBergalis, who along with a fellow computer geek, Ben Rahn, created the site.
So in the presidential race, who’s leading the pack? By a long-shot, it is John Edwards, who has linked his campaign website to ActBlue — all on-line donations to Edwards get routed through ActBlue. So far he has raised $3.15 million on ActBlue.
Neither Senators Hillary Rodham Clinton nor Barack Obama have linked their websites to ActBlue and the numbers show: Senator Clinton has raised only $441 on ActBlue and Senator Obama has raised $23,347.
http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/06/11/campaign-cash-edwards-leads-on-actblue/