Paul’s Haul, Redux

• For the second time this quarter, a supporter-organized “money bomb” has helped Ron Paul break the single-day online fundraising record, this time raising more than $6 million in one day (the first effort, on November 5th, raised more than $4.2 million online in a day). Led by Paul supporter Trevor Lyman and timed to coincide with the anniversary of the Boston Tea Party, Ron Paul’s Tea Party ‘07 marshaled supporters to contribute to what the Politico’s Kenneth P. Vogel called “arguably the largest single-day fundraising haul in U.S. political history.”

• Ron Paul Graphs, the site that’s tapped into the Paul campaign’s own fundraising data to produce dozens of graphs and charts, produced an impressive donation arc that shows donations kicking into high gear around 8am ET yesterday, and tailing off at midnight. “Dan B.,” the supporter who runs the site, puts the final online number at $6,043,022.96, from 59,170 donors.

• The Washington Post’s Jose Antonio Vargas points out that Paul is the only candidate this year, Democratic or Republican, “to increase his fundraising haul with every quarter, raising $640,000 in the first quarter, $2.4 million in the second, $5.1 million in the third.” He’s raised an astonishing $18 million this quarter, more than tripling last quarter’s haul and beating out his campaign’s goal of $12 million by Dec. 31.

• Meanwhile, all we’ve been talking about is money. But the haul is a representative of a massive voter-generated movement. Some supporters have quit their jobs, moved to New Hampshire, blogged, made videos, and obsessed about data. PBS’s NOW produced a good piece about Paul and his zealous supporters, including Tea Party organizer Trebor Lyman. It includes a part of an interview with techPresident’s Zephyr Teachout, the full text of which was posted last week.

The Web on the Candidates

• Yahoo is the latest social portal to get their election on, launching the horserace-loving Political Dashboard, a scoreboard showing how trends in the candidates’ polling numbers, in the prediction markets, and money raised (where the heck is Ron Paul???). Perhaps the most interesting stat is called “Y! Buzz,” showing the searching trends for the candidates on Yahoo’s search engine. Does anyone actually use that? Meanwhile, no mention at all of, ahem, the issues or candidate backgrounds.

• A new online video attacks Mike Huckabee for his role in the parole of Wayne Dumond, a convicted rapist who went on to rape and murder again. Keith W. Emis started the site HuckabeeFacts to promote the video, which features Lois Davidson, the mother of victim Carol Sue Shields, who says that, “If not for Mike Huckabee, Wayne Dumond would have been in prison, and Carol Sue would have bee with us this year for Christmas.” Wired’s Sarah Lai Stirland has the goods on the video, noting that Emis, a “Republican operative,” is denying accusations that he’s working undercover for the Fred Thompson campaign. “That’s completely and totally not true,” Emis says.

• Researchers Charlene Li and Josh Bernoff, who work for marketing research company Forrester, have posted some cool data about how online social participation differs among voters, and what candidates they are supporting. The team, who are using their blog to promote their book Groundswell, about social technology, have developed categories for users of social media ranging from “Creators” — those who publish content online — to “Inactives” — those who don’t use any social technologies. They then apply these categories to self-identified Democrats, Republicans, and Independents and supporters of specific candidates. A sample of the findings: more Democrats are creators, more Republicans are Inactives, Barack Obama has the most support among “Joiners,” (those who just maintain social networking profiles), and Mitt Romney has the most support among Republican “Spectators,” or those that read blogs or forums. Read the whole post to do the survey justice.

• Citizen journalism startup the UpTake has teamed up with Veracifier, the home of TPM TV, to “recruit, train, and showcase independent video journalists from around the country during the 2008 election year.” Sounds cool. The UpTake is led by videblogger Chuck Olsen, so we expect — no, demand! — good things from the partnership.

The Candidates on the Web

• Proving that her campaign isn’t completely afraid of voter-generated content, Hillary Clinton has launched a new site, The Hillary I Know, that collects video testimonials from supporters. The campaign is asking supporters post videos to YouTube and tag them with the phrase “thehillaryiknow,” which will direct them to the site. Since Hillary’s opponents could also upload and tag videos that, while they wouldn’t make it to Hillary’s site, would be searchable on YouTube, this could be a double-edged sword, but as it stands it’s easy enough for critics to simply search for “Hillary Clinton” and find all the ammo they need.

• The FEC has ruled that John Edwards cannot obtain federal matching funds for about $3 million that he raised on ActBlue, the online Democratic fundraising PAC. While it’s a blow to the campaign, it’s also a defeat for those on the left and right that argue that ActBlue simply funnels individual donations to candidates, and is thus exempt from a law banning matching funds for PAC donations. See lawyer Adam Bonin’s response on DailyKos. Somewhat surprisingly, Republican Slatecard founder and techPresident contributor David All was interviewed in the Campaigns & Election story, saying that “We were hoping the FEC ruled favorably for ActBlue in this case, because in the end it’s good for both sides. It just makes sense to have a one stop shop where activists can go and donate.” RedSate.com’s Mike Krempasky — who doesn’t support federal matching funds — wasn’t happy with All’s response.

In Case You Missed It…

December 15 was the official deadline for candidates to post their answers to the 10Questions.com online presidential forum. But since we are hearing from several campaigns, including those of Sen. Barack Obama, Rep. Dennis Kucinich Gov. Bill Richardson, and Rep. Ron Paul that they are still hard at work on their answers, we’ve decided to extend the deadline by three days, to Tuesday, December 18.