Since the McCain campaign's success in 2000, the media has really looked at "online fundraising" as a type of fundraising separate and distinct from any other fundraising, and has given credit to candidates who are able to generate a lot of "online donations", but never ask exactly this question.

I have a lot of e-mail from people since I posted my critical exploration of Mitt's "online fundraising". Much of the e-mail I have received is critical of my view that driving your $2300 donors to give through the website instead of by check is not "online fundraising".

I tend to believe that direct mail, telemarketing, and your website generally attract the same donors. They're people who normally give small amounts, but may occasionally bring in a large $2300 donation. The RNC seems to agree, for the most part, as they have their finance shop divided into small dollar and major donor segments. A small dollar effort (like a mail piece) may prompt a large gift, but the bulk of the $2300 donations are done through personal solicitation, not online.

If I e-mail 500,000 people who are typically small donors, and a large gift comes in, I consider that a grassroots contribution.

Under the definition you've proposed, donations made in conjunction with something like Mitt's National Call Day would be an online contribution if they fulfilled through the website. These weren't calls to $25 donors. Meg Whitman, Matt Blunt and Bill Weld don't call $25 donors. Moreover, 400 people don't raise 6.5 million dollars (an average of 2000 per hour per caller) calling $25 donors.

Why, then, would we count those donations in the same way we do Obama's 50,000 "online donations"? Why would give those donations the same weight as an indicator of grassroots strength? It is demeaning to small donors and discourages their role in the process if we say their effort and the effort of fat-cat money men are in the same boat.

I'm tend to be a populist in the sense that I give a lot of small dollar donors as much or more political weight than a large donor. Both, to be sure, are critical to the success of a campaign (at least in today's environment), and the involvement of both is necessary to win. If we seek to measure whether a candidate is appealing to both, we cannot simply lump the two together in one aggregate number simply because they both used a website to give.

If we're going to define everything solicited or fulfilled online as an online donation, then, given the staggering number of variables your lists allow, we may as well not look at "online donations" and stick instead to itemized versus unitemized donors (which Romney, to his credit, also detailed).

However it's defined, online contributions count for just a small percentage of the total amount candidates raise. The contributions with the most cache and influence come in much larger amounts than individual online contributions. The only way American voters can "write a bigger check" is through public funding.