The financial disclosure reports of the presidential candidates for the year 2007 and January 2008 contain important news for the professional political community: online small donors have arrived in force. After a decade of brilliant flashes, including, most recently, the “money bomb,” millions sent to Ron Paul, internet fundraising has been turned into a steady flame. In 2008,Barack Obama’s campaign received more than one million dollars every day, from a network of givers about to welcome its one millionth member.

It is now beyond dispute that a properly constructed campaign can draw upon the contributions of a great many people in sufficient amounts over a lengthy period of time. It can make itself financially competitive with campaigns relying on the traditional methods of high-roller finance committees, exclusive events, and PAC contributions. The money acquired online still heads mostly to traditional media, especially television. This points to the political Achilles Heel of the internet: a campaign cannot use this new medium effectively to reach people who have not already indicated an interest in its candidate.

But Obama’s millions nevertheless reflect something new in how election campaigns operate, and potentially something new for policymaking as well. Here’s a cutaway view of how the process works. Last Sunday (February 17), a lawyer I know sent an e-mail to seventeen of her friends, asking them to click to her personal fundraising page and help her reach her goal of collecting $1,000 for Obama that week. The page was constructed for her use by the campaign. Those who responded favorably were asked on the screen they saw after completing the transaction to send a similar appeal to ten friends. A thank you e-mail from the Obama campaign arrived the next day, with links and invitations to web pages organizing other kinds of volunteer activity. The day after that, a second e-mail from the campaign landed in the donors’ in-box. The text of this “Major News” missive heralded the approach of the one millionth contributor thusly:

“This unprecedented foundation of support has built a campaign that has shaken the status quo and proven that ordinary people can compete in a political process too often dominated by special interests.

“Unlike Senator Clinton or Senator McCain, we haven’t taken a dime from Washington lobbyists or special interest PACs. Our campaign is responsible to no one but the people.”

The request for another donation, with a deadline of March 4 (the day before the Ohio and Texas primaries) was followed with this link: "donate.barackobama.com/promise".

The benefits that small donor networks confer on campaigns are quite clear: much lower costs per acquisition, quicksilver cycles of solicitation and contribution, a back-end database with dossiers on the preferences and predilections of donors­­–in sum: a digital machine capable of generating a valuable revenue stream for the length of a campaign. A $100 donor can donate 22 times before an election, so smart campaigners craft serialized communications, referencing the media narrative so as to elicit money to make the next turning point go the way the donor and the campaigner both want to see happen. For instance, no sooner had word broken of Hillary Clinton’s $5 million loan to her campaign than the Obama campaign announced a small donor drive to match it. Shameless, yes, but it engages citizens. Cues to small donors to give again come also from neighbors, the news itself, and, in the case of Obama (and others who campaign against “special interests,” which is seemingly everyone), a meta-motivation of changing the way politics works.

What is being solicited, and acquired, along with the money, is a sense of voter commitment to campaign “contributions” in the general sense of the word, that is, to other modes of political participation, in addition to monetary contributions. One could see in the short-term, for example, the Obama campaign (and, for that matter, the Clinton campaign, too) asking its super-donors (the ones who have not only given money, but set up pages to raise money) to rally their micro-networks and contact superdelegates within their collective orbits. Another call to action could enlist e-mailers to bat down a biased news story or online rumor. Not every “ask” has to be just for money. And when answers show results, as well as attentiveness, the money comes in without directly asking.

What this means for government and democracy won’t become clear until after the election. And that will depend on the beneficiary’s willingness to make good on the message of change. Will the legions of small donors (one can hardly imagine how many entries will be in the victor’s database) be summoned to send e-mails to Congress and the media on behalf of the election mandate? Will the small donors be melded with other campaign networks (centered around YouTube channels and Facebook groups, for instance) to form a multi-cause grassroots lobby? An ad hoc grassroots lobby stopped bipartisan, corporate-backed immigration reform twice in two years (with the considerable assistance of talk radio). What could an organized counterpart with the seal of the president as its icon accomplish in, say, the first one hundred days of the new administration?

There’s your ultimate audacity.

Michael Cornfield is Vice-President of Research and Media Strategy at 720 Strategies.