Politicians are always looking for ways to connect with the electorate. The rise of the Internet not only allows for the dissemination of campaign ideas, but also new ways to gather previously unavailable voter feedback, including online fundraising and voter mobilization. The Internet has the capacity to shape the political landscape. The Internet was first used to a limited extent during the 1992 election by the Clinton campaign, using email, bulletin boards, and news groups (Wagner and Gainous, 2009). “The “alt.politics.Clinton” discussion group received approximately 800 messages per day at the height of the campaign” (Wagner and Gainous, 2009). The Internet first became important during the 1996 elections, when each major presidential candidate created their own website (Johnson, Braima, & Sothirajah, 1999). These websites have evolved from basic “pamphlet” information sites to large-scale, comment-based fundraising enterprises (Trammell, Williams, Postelnicu, & Landreville, 2006). These changes reflect the progress and sophistication of the Internet itself. Much like the Internet, online campaigns have gone from novelty to necessity; This is true at the national level as well as at the local level. A Pew Research Center study showed that during the "2008 election, 74 percent of Internet users went online to participate or get news and information about the campaign, representing 55 percent of the entire adult population." (Smith 2009); This use is expected to grow in the future. This study used telephone interviews conducted from November 20 to December 4, 2008 with a sample of 2,254 adults aged 18 and older. The sample used a random sample of digits from telephone exchanges in the continental United States. Fundraising is the...... middle of paper ...... Ternet & American Life Project. Retrieved from http://www.pewinternet.org/Reports/2009/6--The-Internets-Role-in-Campaign-2008.aspxTrammell, KD, Williams, AP, Postelnicu, M. and Landreville, KD (2006) . Evolution of online campaigns: Increasing interactivity in candidate websites and blogs through text and technical features. Mass Communication and Society, 9(1), 21-44. Xenos, M. and Moy, P. (2007). Direct and differential effects of the Internet on political and civic engagement. Journal of Communication, 57(4), 704-718. Wagner, K.M. and Gainous, J. (2009). Electronic basis: do online campaigns work?. The Journal of Legislative Studies, 15(4), 502-520. Wattal, S., Schuff., D., Mandviwalla, M. and Williams, CB (2010). Web 2.0 and politics: the 2008 American presidential election and a research program in e-politics. MIS Quarterly, 34(4), 669-688.