Page 199 - Information and American Democracy Technology in the Evolution of Political Power

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Political Organizations
them on an on-going basis. We in the Bradley campaign now send out
probably eight or ten e-mails a day, not always to our full list, sometimes
to subdivided portions of the list.” 195 For Bradley, the advantage of this
channel for communication was its vastly greater speed and lower cost
than mail and phone trees.
Collecting donations through the Internet was a high priority for
Bradley, who led a successful effort to change Federal Election Com-
mission (FEC) rules on credit card donations. Prior to 2000, individual
donations to candidates by credit card – which meant all Internet-based
donations – did not qualify for federal matching funds under FEC rules.
The commission rules were the result of concern about fraud and illegal
donations from corporations and foreign citizens. At the urging of can-
didates in the 2000 primaries, most notably Bradley, the FEC changed its
rules in June to permit credit card donations to qualify. According to the
campaign, about 1 percent of visitors to Bradley’s campaign site made a
credit-card donation. 196
John McCain’s campaign and organization were similar to Bradley’s.
The plan for making use of the Internet in the campaign began with the
organizers of McCain’s exploratory committee, based again in part on
the success of Jesse Ventura. 197 In the months before the New Hampshire
primary, McCain proved he could organize and manage volunteers us-
ing electronic mail exclusively, and that he could raise funds the same
way. In an interview with the author, McCain attributed much power
to the Internet, claiming that his web site “kept [them] alive” dur-
ing the primary campaign. 198 He rejected my devil’sadvocatepropo-
sition to him that campaign sites – especially his – are useful only for
managing donations. He argued that the new technology permits cam-
paigns to communicate with a network of supporters and volunteers,
and that this adds meaningfully to campaign strategy and success. At
the end of the year, long after his unsuccessful primary run was over,
McCain claimed he was still maintaining a database of 30,000 e-mail
addresses.
One of the most interesting aspects of the McCain campaign was
the immediacy it revealed in the psychology of campaign donations.

195 196
Reed, published interview. Reed, personal interview.
197
Source is Max Fose, McCain campaign official, cited in Inter@ctive Week, July 3, 2000,
p. 60, and reported by PoliticsOnline.com. See Net Pulse 5, no. 1 (Jan. 2, 2001); Net
Pulse 4, no. 9 (May 2, 2000); Net Pulse 2, no. 13 (July 1, 1998); Net Pulse 4, no. 4
(Feb. 16, 2000), http://netpulse.politicsonline.com.
198
John McCain, personal interview with the author, Dec. 9, 2000, Phoenix, Ariz.
182