Cross-posted on e.politics

A little bird dropped something off via email the other day that I thought you guys might be interested in — it's a new twist on the classic political house party fundraiser. For years, campaigns have organized supporters to throw their own house parties both to raise money and to build enthusiasm. Conference calls with the candidate and/or other Big Names have become a staple of these ritual events. The new twist is that campaigns are beginning to substitute webcasts for the conference calls, at least as an experiment. Here's the invitation to an upcoming Giuliani party (with the hosts' names and the address removed to keep you kids from swooping in and drinking all their beer), part of Rudy's evil plan to raise a million in a single night. A quick Google search shows that the Obama campaign did something similar a couple of weeks ago, although there seem to have been some typical webcast buffering problems.

I suspect that this isn't an entirely new phenomenon; wouldn't be the first time I'm late to the party. I'm interested to see how well it works — apparently, the hosts whose invitation I received are going to be hooking their computer up to a big-screen TV. Mmmmmm, low-quality web-video — in hi-def! I wonder if a pre-recorded video clip would work better than a video stream, or would it lose the "you are there" effect?

– cpd