John Edwards’ Online Take
by Patrick Ruffini :: January 5th, 2007 5:47 pmJohn Edwards has already raised over $400,000 online for 2008 according to ActBlue.
This raises what I think is a salient point about ActBlue. They are simultaneously a community fundraising site and a vendor to Democratic candidates (their white label product goes under the name Auburn Quad). And John Edwards uses them.
At the end of ‘06, some trumpeted ActBlue’s $18 million raised since ‘04 against the $300,000 raised by Rightroots for Republican candidates. But the vast majority of that seven figure total probably came from pages embedded on the candidate and PAC websites proper rather than through viral fundraising driven through blogs. The total driven through grassroots pages in 2006 seems to be about $3 million — not at all a bad sum and a tribute to ActBlue’s innovative model. But it’s dwarfed by the PAC company’s? activity as a traditional vendor to candidates. So far, nearly all of Edwards’ ActBlue total has come from his web site.
The lesson is that the vast majority of fundraising and political action still occurs through e-mail and candidate websites rather than the blogs, while a large majority of the discussion that shapes said action occurs on blogs.
Tagged: 2008 
actblue john edwards online politics
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some of our premeire house candidates in ‘06 had very weak websites. Unfortunately, they are now former members
[…] Bill Beutler is knocking ABC PAC for its fundraising totals and engaging what smacks of some end-zone dancing for ActBlue. This part in particular is the kind of apples-and-oranges comparison I warned about earlier: Note the figures. Yes, it’s all this cycle. The top 5 presidential candidates on ActBlue have received about $434,000, while all candidates on ABC PAC have collected exactly $298. […]