John Kerry's lame fundraising drive

This is John Kerry's home page. Take a look, and tell me if you find anything about a fundraising drive. Nothing, right?

I got an email Friday pointing me to this page, an online fundraising drive aiming to raise $146,000 by this Friday. The gimmick is to raise $100 for every mile between DC and Crawford, TX. Not an unrealistic number for a campaign still trying to figure out what this newfangled "Inter-Net" thing is.

However, 1) this fundraising drive is not listed on the Kerry homepage. There is no way to get to the update page without following the link from the email. 2) When the email was sent out, the graphic said 141 miles had been completed

Miles Down: 141
Miles to go: 1307
Total Miles: 1448

Now, aside from the fact the Kerry camp was cheating and started the contest at 141 miles before sending out any emails, going to the progress page, one sees that the page hasn't been updated at all. It's still stuck on those very same numbers. So either they haven't raised a dime over the weekend (not an impossibility), or they can't be bothered to make simple updates to their site.

The web is an interactive medium, and until political campaigns like Kerry's get it, they won't be able to exploit its full potential. As is, this effort is lame, and nowhere near the levels of Dean, the Draft Clark movement, or even Kucinich.

Update: I concede that saying the Kerry camp was "cheating" before sending out emails may be a bit harsh. It's entirely possible I wasn't in the first batch of emails sent out, and that the initial group of recipients ponied up the initial cash.

Posted August 11, 2003 09:09 AM