Turns out we’re better at raising money that Republicans, online. Kari Chisolm down in Portland points out that MyGOP really didn’t do all that well:

…the Republican Party’s MyGOP portal — intended to be a social networking and activism site — has completely fallen flat.

Apparently, the RNC ran a promotion in which the top five participants who raised money from their friends would win an iPod. Well, the top five are:

GOP Bloggers – $498 Brian Bridgeforth – $426 Melissa Nolen – $150 Hank Gill – $100 Matthew Larvick – $50

Wow. Even a little bit of promotion should have helped the site pull in more than $1224. Looks like the RNC has some work to do to catch up on the online side of things.

This could be because the GOP really has no interest in connecting online (a large blog convention in Nevada populated by progressives with no conservative equal would support this supposition), but it would also imply that we’re getting better at raising money in a very important post McCain-Feingold way. Since soft money was outlawed, small donations, especially small donations online, are becoming more and more important.

Who cares if you can put together several big bundles of money, when a good online operation can bring in both money and actual support from actual people.

And, it is good to know that this is getting us somewhere:

A surge in small, individual contributions is lifting Democratic campaigns this year and is slowing a Republican fund-raising advantage that has existed for years in national politics, according to Federal Election Commission data.

Democratic House and Senate candidates, and their two major campaign committees, are enjoying stronger grass-roots support than at any time since the GOP took over both branches of Congress in the 1994 elections, according to strategists from both parties.

The strategists have reviewed the most recent Federal Election Commission data, which were released this spring.

In the meantime, Republican campaign committees are stumbling. The Republican National Committee is lagging behind its totals from two years ago, though it has a financial lead over the Democratic National Committee.