The Internet is Evening the Campaign Playing Field

In political races across the country, some of the nation's wealthiest individuals are running for office using their own money not having to raise a dime. This frees them up to spend their time campaigning and not worrying about raising enough funds to get through the next day. This gives everyone else, all but less than 1% of the country, a clear disadvantage.

In a time when political campaigns continue to become increasingly expensive to have a fighting chance, the other 99% have been forced to schmooze donors while not hearing the issues of voters, attend black tie fundraisers rather than PTA meetings, and stretch every cent in order to get out their message.

Now the Internet is beginning to make the life of the little guy a bit easier. In a recent case study the public blog DailyKos.com raised over $150,000 in four days to support the 2004 Ohio presidential recount. On the first day the site asked everyone who believed in the cause to donate anything they could. People were averaging donations of $10-15 and if they could not donate they were asking other ways they could help. In the end the full Internet campaign raised over $338,000 and had lined up volunteers across Ohio.

I think this is one of the most promising ways the Internet is helping to promote Democracy. In this case it was successfully used to spread the message, connect people together, and help the little guy fight for the legitimacy of the political process. Hopefully in the future, candidates can use blogs to raise money for their campaigns so that they can focus a little less time worrying about fundraising. This may even the field between the million and billionaires and average Joes who all want to make a difference and run for office.