"Don't believe the hype" about online fund-raising, say Micah L. Sifry and Andrew Rasiej in a thought-provoking article in The Politico. Sifry and Rasiej, the editor and the publisher of the Personal Democracy Forum, an online magazine and annual conference on how technology is changing politics, say that most fund-raising now includes an online component.
Back in the early days of politics online, a big money haul through a campaign website was truly cause for attention. The seminal moment occurred on the heels of the unexpectedly large victory of Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) over George W. Bush in the 2000 New Hampshire presidential primary; McCain's campaign URL was on the screen during his entire victory speech, and the free publicity generated $1 million in online contributions in the first two days following and a total of $2.2 million in the first week.
Some observers speculated that the McCain campaign was padding those numbers by adding direct mail and telemarketing dollars to the Internet total. But Becki Donatelli, McCain's lead Internet consultant, tells us, "There was no spin; it just happened. Donations came pouring in after he won the New Hampshire primary. In fact, the deluge was so large that our servers could not handle the load, and no one in the campaign was allowed to run reports for days, because it added stress to the servers."
Ever since then, the political press has treated online fundraising as synonymous with grass-roots fundraising, a sign of spontaneous support. But it's time to retire that notion. The fact is that more people are giving online because it's the easiest way to conduct a financial transaction and because they've become accustomed to using their credit cards to make all kinds of purchases online.
Sifry and Rasiej say that "campaigns themselves are relying more and more on their own websites as the place to conclude a fundraising pitch" such as a direct mail piece that cites the home page, or an invitation to a big-dollar event that includes the donation URL. "There is no conceivable way their online fundraising totals represent a true indication of grass-roots energy," they say.
A better indicator of real grass-roots enthusiasm for a candidate, they say, is how many of their total donors are first-time contributors.
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