Obama raised more than $500 million from more than 6.5 million donors, reports The Washington Post. That's incredible. Andrew Sullivan says, "I don't believe that Obama would have ever been able to become president in the era before the Internet," and that's probably right, though it's about more than just the money. Will.i.Am's "Yes, We Can" video had to be worth at least six percent in Ohio. But if the revolution need no longer be televised on the presidential level, Congressional fundraising is still the same stale mix of high-dollar fundraisers and industry kowtowing. Small donor democracy is a very good model when you're dealing with a single candidate able to command intense media attention and blessed with high enthusiasm supporters, but it's not made much of a dent on the more prosaic races that decide the rest of government. But it could. On the presidential level, candidates enjoy the multiplier effect of media attention. Downticket, however, you could rip fundraising away from megadonors by adding a multiplier effect directly to small donations, as Mark Schmitt explained here.
