McCains's Internet Gold Mine

Arizona Sen. John McCain raked in more than $1 million in online donations in the two days following his triumph over George W. Bush in the New Hampshire Republican primary, according to his campaign.

The campaign said that as of 7 p.m. Thursday, 8,928 supporters had contributed more than $1 million using the MCain Web site, with an average contribution of $112.

"Last fall, it was hard to get phone calls returned," said Herb Allison, McCain's national finance chairman. "Now people are calling us and it's hard to return all the phone calls."

While he'd rather be vying for votes, the reality is the Arizona senator will have to spend much of his time dialing for dollars in order to raise enough money to compete with Texas Gov. George W. Bush for the Republican presidential nomination.

"He has a lot of enthusiasm," said Lee Miringoff, director of the Marist College Institute for Public Opinion. "He needs to convert that into cash quickly so he can both compete in the primaries and put in place staff, organization and money to go into the many states that are coming up very quickly."

Trying to quickly build up his campaign bank account, McCain has scheduled a major fund-raiser in Washington, D.C., for Feb. 10. His speech will be broadcast via satellite to separate receptions in California, Arizona and Michigan. And supporters also can stay home and chat with McCain over the Internet; the price of admission is $100.

Two of the hosts of the Washington fund-raiser are lobbyists who serve on McCain's national steering committee: former White House aide Kenneth Duberstein and former Rep. Vin Weber of Minnesota. Both represent clients with interests before the Senate Commerce Committee, which McCain chairs. Duberstein's clients include General Motors and Time Warner; Weber represents AT&T and the Air Transport Association, the industry trade group for the major airlines.

McCain also has fund-raisers scheduled in New York City, San Francisco and Los Angeles this month, along with a reception in New Jersey for people who have raised at least $2,500 for his campaign.

The emphasis on money is due to the huge financial gap separating McCain and Bush.

While the Texas governor had $31 million in the bank as of Dec. 31, McCain had just $1.5 million on hand, plus another $6.2 million in federal funds, for a total of $7.7 million. Just to be able to reach the spending caps in South Carolina, Arizona and Michigan the next three states where McCain is competing his campaign would need $7.1 million. California would add another $12.6 million to the total.

Bush, who is not accepting federal funds, is not bound by federal spending limits.

McCain raised $13.7 million in 1999 almost half of it in the last three months of the year plus n additional $2 million transferred from his Senate campaign fund. In January, he raised another $2.5 million.

Bush had raised $68.7 million by the end of December.