Virtual war chests: blog-based fund raising.

• Author: Sanchez, Julian
• Position: Citings - Brief Article

THE IMPLOSION OF Howard Dean led many to conclude that the hype over decentralized, Internet-driven campaigning was just one more dot-com delusion. But some candidates are discovering that there's gold in them war weblogs.

By the start of April, readers of the liberal blogger Atrios had contributed more than $27,000 to the Democratic National Committee and over $126,000 to John Kerry's presidential campaign, including $20,771 raised on a single "John Kerry Thursday." At around the same time, readers of The Daily Kos, a liberal blog that tracks the details of political horse races, had dropped almost $60,000 into the DNC'S collection plate and more than $48,000 in Kerry's.

The real political power of blogs, however may be in attracting national attention--and dollars--to congressional or even local races. Kentucky Democrat Ben Chandler's campaign credits blog advertising, which brought in some $80,000 on a $2,000 investment, with helping him win a hard-fought special election for a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives.

Weblogs hold out to candidates...