Public Campaign Action Fund's Executive Director Nick Nyhart reflects on the study of small donors by the Campaign Finance Institute in this piece for the Huffington Post.  As the hype about small donation in the presidential race fails to cut in to big donors influence in congressional races, the best hope to put the balance of power in the hands of small donors remains full public financing of elections, which is what we're asking candidates for Congress to show their support for via the Voters First Pledge.

While we work to give Congress a chance to run for office without taking big money, other tools have made it easier for ordinary voters to jump into the political fray and take on the entrenched powers that enjoy such influence on our elections. Adam Bonin, an attorney who specializes in the intersection of politics and the internet, writes in the Philadelphia Inquirer about the importance of keeping the internet open as a channel of open, civic participation.

One of the interesting peripheral stories on the presidential campaign has been the innovative online donation strategies of candidates like Sen. Barack Obama and Rep. Ron Paul to recruit small donors to their effort. This Los Angeles Times story talks about what that shift in strategy has yielded for Obama, and what it means for a move away from traditional big donors politics.

Yesterday the New York Times tried to draw some new lines around what qualifies someone as a "donor," specifically when it comes to how Barack Obama counts his donors. The Times treats people who pay for a campaign sticker or button as something less than a donor (a real, live, check-writer). Nick Nyhart, our President, takes a look at the faulty logic in this featured Huffington Post piece.