2 - The Michigan Daily - Monday, August 2, 2004

NEWS


Politicians turn to the Web for donors, votes*

By Justin Miller
Daily Staff Reporter
If the Internet is a revolution in the
way politics are conducted, Joe Trippi
might be Paul Revere. He made his
way through the presidential primaries
with his idea to use the Internet to
strengthen a candidate and connect to
voters, all the while motivating college
students and campaign managers alike
to use the Internet.
More than a year later, the cam-
paigns of President George W. Bush
and Democratic Party nominee
John Kerry have utilized the web to
reach out to millions of voters and
raise some of the $1 billion that
will be spent pursuing the Oval
Office this year.
The presidency was the furthest thing
from Trippi's mind when he got the idea
to use the Internet for political purposes.
"It really started in the mid-'90s.
There was this community forming that
was interested in games like PlaySta-
tion," Trippi said.
One day, the community learned
that one of its members, David Haines,
died unexpectedly.
"Someone suggested we take up a
collection for an educational fund for
his two kids. It hit me that this com-
munity was doing stuff for this guy
they never met that we don't do for our
next-door neighbor. It hit me that the
same thing could be done for a presi-
dential candidate," he said.
Trippi went on to become the cam-
paign manager of a then-unknown Ver-

mont governor running for president
- Howard Dean.
The rest, they say, is history.
In the beginning, Dean's website had
only 432 supporters. The campaign
pushed those supporters to find just one
more person to contribute. Nine months
later, the roster ballooned to 650,000
supporters. The Dean campaign put a
series of smashed fundraising records
under its belt and $50 million in its
coughers - all the result of contribu-
tions averaging $77 a person.
How did he do it?
"Word of mouth: it can often be
tricking the press to say 'www.dean-
foramerica.com.' It's guerrilla mar-
keting. It can be everything from a
cartoon to a flash animation to get
people to go back and check where
it came from: 'Hey, check out this
thing from the Dean campaign,' "
Trippi said.
Such power can be achieved for as lit-
tle as the cost of a domain name, mak-
ing it cheap enough for college politicos
like Business student Scott Foley, chair-
man of wwwstudentobrbush.org.
"So far, feedback has been very posi-
tive and there are many students on
campus that just can't wait to help out
with the campaign. The website serves
as just another means to attract potential
Bush supporters and get them involved
with our effort," Foley said.
For Dean, the vast majority of the
$50 million he raised in nine
months came via Internet dona-
tions, which were cheaper and

"The single most important event in 2003 was when 30,000 Dean
supporters voted on the Net to tell Dean to not take public funds."
-Joe Trippi
Former Howard Dean campaign manages


quicker to process than paper
checks. The wider field of small
donors brought by web campaigns
has yet to get rid of $2,000+ dona-
tions, though.
Such high-end donations bother
Trippi.
"(The Internet) is going to do away
with them. There's no reason to go to
folks that make demands on (the candi-
date) when you can get just as much
from people that want to make a differ-
ence. (Politicians) spend all their time
calling wealthy donors. To get it back in
the hands of average Americans, you get
the freedom of the candidates to not be
locked up somewhere making 'money
calls,'"Trippi said.
The Kerry camp has taken notice of
the web's power to raise money.
"Kerry's campaign has done an amaz-
ing job of harnessing what the Dean
campaign started. He's got a $183 mil-
lion to Bush's $228 million. Kerry's
average contribution is $182," he added.
Donations of $200 and below com-
monly come by way of the Web.
Those who contribute less than $200
to the Kerry campaign make up 32 per-
cent of his total contributors, the Federal
Nader sues
Mich. to be
on '04 ballot
LANSING, Mich. (AP) - Ralph
Nader's campaign has sued in federal
court in an attempt to be placed on the
Michigan ballot as the Reform Party's
presidential candidate.
A suit was also filed in Illinois to
gain ballot access there, the Nader
campaign said.
The Nader campaign said the Michi-
gan suit was filed late Tuesday in fed-
eral court in Detroit. Nader says the
state of Michigan violated his First
Amendment right to be on the ballot as
a candidate of a political party.
"Ralph Nader is the nominee of the
Reform Party and he is entitled to
appear on the Reform Party's ballot
line in Michigan," Nader's attorney,
Bruce Afran, said in a written state-
ment. "Anything less is a violation of
Nader's constitutional rights and the
right of voters to have a ballot free of
manipulation by professional politi-
cians."
Nader might also qualify for the
Michigan ballot as an independent can-
didate, but he would prefer to be listed
as the Reform Party candidate, his
campaign said.

Election Commission reported. By com-
parison, 26 percent of Bush's donors
gave less than $200.
One decision by the campaigns that
abridged their differences was the
choice to opt out of public funding since
the primaries started.
It's something the Dean campaign
pioneered inside Democratic circles
during the primaries. The decision to
opt out loosened restrictions on the
campaign and allowed it to raise
more money than it had thought
originally possible.
Trippi thinks that decision
changed everything.
"The single most important event
in 2003 was when 30,000 Dean sup-
porters voted on the Net to tell Dean
to not take public funds. Four days
after they made that vote, Kerry
announced he would opt out too,"
Trippi said. He thought that decision
helped save Kerry's candidacy,
allowing the senator to float a $6.4
million loan to himself. That infu-
sion of cash saved his broke cam-
paign and helped him win Iowa.
That synergy of fundraising and
supporters' voices gave rise to com-

munities that felt they were part of
the presidential campaign. By
investing money in the Dean cam-
paign, more people than ever felt
they had a share in the rise - and
fall - of a presidential candidate
than ever before. The beating heart
of that and many political Web
communities are Web logs, or
"blogs" for short.
"Blogging certainly encourages par*
ticipation and healthy debate, which is
always great for an open democracy.
The disadvantage is when people are
reading a blog, they aren't out doing
something to make a difference, so in
the future, we will try to encourage as
much civic participation as possible,"
said Adam Mordecai, a former Dean
campaign member and current webmas-
ter of changeforamerica.com.
If used right, blogs and the websites
they belong to may allow a candidate
to achieve a level of intimacy and
reach that would have been unimagin-
able during Harry Truman's Whistle
Stop Tour or the tireless stumping of
more recent candidates.
Trippi's hopes for the Internet go
beyond running for president - he
See WEB, Page 3

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