From The Times UK
By Andrew Sullivan

Last Tuesday night, as the results from Kentucky and Oregon gave both the Clinton and the Obama campaign something to feel good about, another statistic blipped up on the television. In April the Obama team had raised a further $31m (£15.8m) for its campaign. The Clintons managed $20m – and the broader financial picture was even grimmer for Hillary.

Barack Obama now has close to $38m cash in hand for the remaining campaign, compared with Clinton’s $6m. And her debts amount to $10m, not counting the $11m she lent herself. His debts are only $2m.

How did this happen? The Clintons are the biggest name in the Democratic party. Their campaign chairman, Terry McAuliffe, was once chairman of the party. In December, when Clinton was the favourite, she was able to use that leverage to persuade most big donors to go with her. She had star power and a pitch designed to appeal to Hollywood (the first female president) and to New York (she was its senator).

There is only one real answer to Obama’s financial success: the internet. What Howard Dean, a previous candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination, presaged in 2004 – when he raised $27m online for his campaign – has come to fruition only four years later with a candidate who is primed to take advantage of web power and a generation that is now used to relating, thinking, talking and meeting online.

It was one of Clinton’s many huge errors that she bypassed Silicon Valley’s fundraisers in favour of more traditional areas of Democratic support. And she missed the key element of the new politics: social networking. She was still AOL; Obama was Facebook. Clinton was the PC; Obama was a Mac.

Read more Facebook Politics