Internet Fund-Raising Makes Primaries a Fair Fight.

THOSE familiar with the Internet's history know the network was built with redundant connections that allow data to "route around" trouble spots and glitches.

Few realized until now, though, that the Net also can route around politics as usual.

Conventional wisdom told us John McCain had no real chance to win the GOP presidential nomination because he lacks Texas Gov. George W. Bush's broad network of party connections. But the Arizona senator has gained a foothold against the once-presumptive Republican favorite with a little help from a new, more democratic sort of network -- the Web.

In the 48 hours after McCain won New Hampshire's primary, visitors to his Web site donated more than $1 million to his campaign. By now, it's likely the site has more than doubled the $1.5 million it raised before that Feb. 1 primary. Net users are running to McCain like a dot-com IPO, and his stock is surging as a result.

Cyber-optimists have long predicted the Internet will revolutionize the political process, breaking down the hegemony of political parties and giving candidates and voters a new way to connect. That may yet turn out to be true. For now, though, the Net is impacting politics the old-fashioned way: by buying its way in.

Every serious presidential candidate has a Web site, of course, and they all ask visitors for money. But most campaigns are happy to raise enough money online to cover the cost of the sites themselves. Bush, for example, had collected less than $350,000 online as of Feb. 4.

McCain's site, though, is a bit more aggressive than most. If you visit www.mccain2000.com for more than a minute or so, a small window pops up on your screen asking for a donation. (I heard Microsoft was going to try the same thing with Windows 2000, but the Justice Department talked them out of it.)

Populist pipeline

The real reason for McCain's online fund-raising success lies not in Web design but with the candidate himself. While his position as chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee makes him a classic beltway insider, his populist pushes for campaign finance reform and a failed tobacco tax initiative have made him something of a maverick. His storied past as a prisoner of war in Vietnam doesn't hurt, either.

Truth is, he's more popular with the media -- and with voters, for that matter -- than with most of his own party's leaders.

So while Bush has a natural fund-raising advantage among Republican power brokers, McCain has an edge among people who, like himself, are shut out of that process.

"The Internet allows you to reach people directly when the old structures aren't necessarily working," said Wes Gullett, McCain's deputy campaign manager. "John McCain's message is about empowering people to take back their government from special interests, and the Internet is the most empowering tool since the printing press."

This isn't to say McCain isn't raising money through traditional channels. He's collected plenty through corporate supporters, including a number of companies that do business before his committee. But he's raised more money online than have all the other GOP candidates combined, and that cash will have a significant impact on his campaign.

"We structured our campaign so that we'd have all the early primaries appropriately funded, and we did that," Gullett said. "This money (raised online) will allow us to continue the campaign beyond that."

Quick cash

Online fund raising comes with other advantages over the old-fashioned methods:

* It's cheaper. Most Web surfers don't expect steak dinners or billion-dollar military contracts in return for their donations.

* It's easier. Web forms can prevent people from contributing until they've submitted all the information required by the Federal Election Commission, thereby saving campaign workers the trouble of chasing down addresses and occupations for donors who mail in money without complete documentation.

* It's faster. In the time it takes to deliver and process a check sent by mail, a candidate has plenty of time to stick his foot in his mouth and drop out of the race. Online contributions, meanwhile, can be spent in less than two days.

The speed of online contributions is particularly important for underdogs like McCain, who must overcome the most imposing advantage of being the favorite: early money.

Since 1976, every candidate who raised the most money the year before an election and became eligible for matching funds ended up winning his party's presidential nomination. That fact, reported by Charles Lewis in his book "The Buying of the President 2000," explains why Bush -- who raised an astonishing $37 million in just four months last year -- is still the man to beat.

In past years, upset winners of early primaries didn't have time to turn their increased visibility into the cold, hard cash needed to win presidential campaigns. By the time the checks cleared, they'd lost South Carolina and were on their way out of the race.

McCain, though, already sees the proceeds from New Hampshire in his campaign's checking account. His landslide victory attracted legions of new supporters, many of whom found his Web site a perfect place to express their sentiment in the way candidates love best.

Online fund raising won't win the election for McCain. But it just might give him a chance to lose it in a fair fight.