Dem Captures Ky. House Seat AUTHOR: SmooveJ Zao

For those of you who haven't been keeping up, there was a special
election held for a House seat in Kentucky today. The Democrats haven't
won a special election since 1991, and this one was right in the heart
of GOP country.
Ben Chandler easily defeated
Republican opponent Alice Forgy Kerr 55 - 43. That, my friends is a
decisive win in a race that has national implications. In 2000, Bush
carried the state by 15 percent over Al Gore. This time around, Bush
and his cronies were pulling hard for Kerr, and they got spanked:

Bush made a commercial for Kerr's campaign and House
Speaker Dennis Hastert stumped for her. Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky.,
gave her $10,000 and loaned top aides to run her campaign. Both
national political parties spent money on advertising for their
candidates. Democrats, who once held sway in the Kentucky congressional
delegation, were down to one of six House seats.

But that's not all. For the first time, the blogosphere played a HUGE
part in getting Chandler elected (from the subscription only Roll
Call):

Candidates like Ben Chandler, a Democrat competing in
Kentucky's special election to replace Rep. turned Gov. Ernie Fletcher
(R), are tapping into a new breed of political animal with potentially
deep pockets -- the Web log reader.
"We're raising [considerable] money off the blogs," said Chandler
spokesman Jason Sauer. "It's been really successful. Really beyond
anything we've expected."
With an investment of only $2,000, and in less than two weeks, the
campaign has raked in between $45,000 and $50,000 in contributions from
blog readers, and that number is growing every day, said Chandler
campaign manager Mark Nickolas.
Chandler -- a former state auditor and former state attorney general --
is facing off against GOP state Sen. Alice Forgy Kerr in the Feb. 17
special election for the Lexington-area House seat. But while Kerr has
outraised Chandler by several hundred thousand dollars -- as of late
last week, Kerr had raised about $1.2 million and Chandler was
estimating his fundraising total at about $650,000 -- Chandler's
campaign says its fundraising pace is picking up and at least part of
the surge has come from the Web.
"It has been phenomenal," Nickolas said. "I get an e-mail every time
there's a contribution -- and we know from the e-mail the source is a
blog when they come through that avenue. Since the morning of Jan. 29,
the FEC [filing] cut-off, I've put all those e-mails in a separate
file. So far there are 711." [...]
Democratic presidential candidate Howard Dean has paved the way,
raising millions in campaign cash from those who've visited his "Blog
for America" site -- but Chandler has followed a slightly different
model.
Instead of creating his own blog, Chandler is drawing potential donors
to his campaign Web site by running advertisements on 11 other popular,
politically oriented blogs such as Calpundit, Daily Kos and Instapundit
[...]
In order to track how well the blogosphere traffic is translating into
direct campaign contributions, Chandler's Web site encourages donors to
tack a few more cents onto their contribution so campaign operatives
can learn from which readers the cash is flowing.
Calpundit readers, for instance, are asked to add 15 cents to their
contribution, while Daily Kos readers are asked to tack a penny onto
their donation. If donors come to Chandler's Web site by way of
Instapundit, then they are asked to add three cents to their
contribution.
Nickolas said the contributions from blog readers are "averaging in the
$40 to $50 range." The vast number of contributions are between $20 and
$25, but every so often a $1,000 or $2,000 contribution will pop up to
"boost the average."
While Nickolas was initially hoping simply to make back the campaign's
$2,000 investment, the gamble has brought in more than 20 times that
amount.

The balance of power is changing. Control of information, money, and
popular support is not only being decentralized, but also organized.
For the first time Democrats are behaving like a cohesive party, and
this is only the beginning. The revolution, as they say, will not be
televised.
But it will be webcast.

Posted by flow Frazao on February 17, 2004 at 09:19 PM | Permalink