Blogs Pump Bucks Into Campaigns

[La_Serpiente]

Blogs Pump Bucks Into Campaigns

Not even his own staff would call Democratic congressional candidate Ben Chandler a nethead.

"He uses the Internet almost exclusively for fantasy baseball," said campaign spokesman Jason Sauer, who added that he wasn't sure whether, until recently, Chandler even knew what a blog was.

But that was before Chandler's campaign turned a $2,000 investment in blog advertising into over $80,000 in donations in only two weeks. Chandler -- who won a seat in the House of Representatives Tuesday evening -- definitely knows what a blog is now, Sauer said. "It's that thing that brings in money."

Political blog advertising represents the latest twist on the Internet fund-raising strategy pioneered by the campaign of Democratic presidential candidate Howard Dean, which raised millions of grass-roots dollars from its Blog for America website. Chandler's campaign is the first of several that have started advertising on political blogs as a cost-effective way to reach a national audience.

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Blogs Pump Bucks Into Campaigns

[buckeye1]

1. The Chandler victory is important.

The Bush "coattails" failed. This article shows that internet fund raising can be very important for Dems. McCain lead the way in 2000,Moveon in 2002 proved it and Dean and others have used it well recently.
I have always thought that $50(avg.)X20 million Dems could outfund the Repubs.
I think the Net can solve many problems.

[bigtree]

2. Cost effective and a boon for the net.

It's nice to see that fundraising costs don't have to run into the millions. And they can piggyback on our liberal blogs.

Can't help but wonder about the future of blog driven campaigns, though. Tip of the iceberg. I worry about charlatans getting more exposure than their worth. But, wheee! Here we go! Open Democracy!

Say, I've got a few bucks. Hmmm.

[Adelante]

3. Wes Clark set us on this case

Wes Clark Democrats came through for Ben Chandler. It was so satisfying to see our efforts helped determine so important an outcome.