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No national political candidate would dare think of running a campaign today without using the Internet, but none of them is apparently using the Web as effectively right now as Democratic presidential hopeful Howard Dean of Vermont.

On Monday, Dean's campaign raised an amazing $802,083 online in one day, pushing his fund raising above $7 million for the quarter that began April 1 and putting him in the top tier of candidates for the Democratic presidential nomination.

The amount of money his campaign brought in online, and its use of the Web to draw in supporters, keep them involved and organize them locally, is winning plaudits from analysts and others who say his is the first candidacy to put the Internet to full use.

Praise for Site

"He's really leveraging the medium, putting it in the hands of the people," says Carol Baroudi, an analyst at Baroudi Bloor in Arlington, Massachusetts, and a co-author of The Internet for Dummies. "This medium is the most dynamic medium available. It's when I want it, it's there, and it keeps getting refreshed."

The official Dean Web site can be shared by people who can voice their opinions and connect with others, both online and off-line, she says. "What he's done is substantiated a community."

The Web site's home page urges supporters to click to "stay connected," to "get involved" and to contribute. It also includes an official campaign Web log to keep supporters informed about the whirlwind activities of the campaign and easy access to local Dean "meet up" groups that can work on the campaign locally. As with other presidential campaign Web sites, there's information about the candidate, from his background as a physician to his serving as governor in Vermont. And there are position papers, press releases, and other traditional means of helping voters learn more.

But in something like a presidential campaign site, design matters, Baroudi says. And Dean's designers got it right. "It's very inviting. I think they did a stunning job. For one thing, I can find everything I want to find."

"To me, this is hopeful because it has a way of reaching out and touching people in a way that can't be controlled yet," Baroudi says. "(President) Bush has been putting all of his money into owning the media, and this is a medium he doesn't own."

Reflecting the Campaign

Nicco Mele, the webmaster for the Burlington, Vermont-based Dean campaign, says the site is designed to be an extension and expression of the candidate and to help people become personally involved in what has been dubbed a "people-powered campaign."

The site is run using open-source software and is hosted in several parts. The campaign blog is hosted by Rackspace Managed Hosting, while content management and credit card processing services are provided through Convio. MeetUp.com provides meeting organization, and TVTonic.com helps send video clips of Dean's campaign to volunteers around the country so they can be shown to new campaign supporters.

"We're really a low-budget campaign," and the TVTonic site provides a cheap means of distributing video, compared with traditional DVD-burning and overnight delivery, Mele says.

"We're getting obscene traffic for a political site," with more than 100,000 unique hits daily, he says. Although that's nothing compared with major corporate sites, he says that could change. "I'm planning on it," he adds.

All the other Democratic candidates have Web sites, a necessity for a 21st century campaign. Online, you'll find U.S. Rep. Richard Gephardt of Missouri, Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts, Sen. Joseph Lieberman of Connecticut, and Sen. John Edwards of North Carolina. But none seems to exude the excitement of the Dean site, experts say.

Campaign Boost

"It's tapping into a sense of community," say Harry Wolhandler, an analyst at Accelara Research in Harrisville, New Hampshire. "They've done a lot of things right without having to be sophisticated about it."

Most notable, Wolhandler says, is that the Dean site is direct in getting its message across and connecting directly with viewers. "Their whole approach is to be connected," he says. "It comes through as very authentic."

The site has "calls to action" all over it, from asking people to join the campaign to asking for contributions for what has so far been a very successful fund-raising effort. "He's lighting people up with it," Wolhandler says.

G. Terry Madonna, a political pollster and the director of the Center for Politics and Public Affairs at Millersville University in Millersville, Pennsylvania, says the Dean site communicates a "clear message ... that resonates with a core set of Democratic voters" in the liberal wing of the Democratic Party, which was "the most upset over the outcome of the 2000 election and over the war in Iraq."

"He's been able to tap into that core constituency better than anyone else," Madonna says.

As engaging as Dean's Web site is, it isn't enough to make or break an election, Madonna adds. But his online fund-raising success does show that that could be changing.

"There isn't any doubt about it, these Web sites are critical in terms of fund raising, critical in terms of massing an activist nucleus to help the campaign," Madonna says. "While I wouldn't say that they can win an election, they can provide you with the tools to help win. You could see it coming."

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