By Washington Correspondent Tom Carver

The traditional way of raising political money is to put 200 people in a hotel room, give them some champagne and a rousing speech and tap them for cash.

John McCain has been appealing against the use of big money in politics, but he too has to do this simply to stay in the race.

At one bash in a Washington hotel, the Republican nominee asked $500 a head to attend.

John McCain appeared on a large screen, beamed in by satellite to four fundraisers simultaneously around the country. This is a dash for cash - John McCain needs to be everywhere at once to compete with frontrunner George Bush for the party nomination.

But for the first time, he can be.

John McCain's Virginia headquarters is fully hooked up to the internet. On the night of his victory in New Hampshire, the office discovered how powerful the net could be.

No one had to solicit donations. Instead, they sat back and watched support and money flow into McCain's website at the rate of $20,000 an hour.

Impulse donations

Becky Donatalli, McCain's campaign consultant, said the internet was the first tool that managed to harness many Americans' fleeting moments of political enthusiasm.

"We have our gratification, we Americans want it and we want it right this second, and we don't want to have to go sit down and write out a cheque and look for an envelope and put a stamp on it and then wait until the next day and take it and mail it," she said.

"These guys fell in love with John McCain and right then and there, they want to go donate to him"

Veteran Democrat consultant Jim Margolis still relies on TV and direct mail to package his candidates.

But in 1984, he was working for frontrunner Walter Mondale when he was soundly beaten in New Hampshire by outsider Gary Hart. Had the internet been around then, the final outcome could have been very different.

"We were scared to death of Gary Hart and his win in New Hampshire, but the one thing we knew was he couldn't organise and get his money fast enough to really compete with us in the other states.

There was too much time that would have to be taken to send out direct mail and then for people to write the cheque and then for the cheques to come in and for them to clear and then for them to produce ads and to compete in all these different states," he said.

"We had a way to sort of establish a firewall that would probably prevent him from winning the nomination."

New volunteers

McCain's internet campaign is run by 28-year-old webmaster Max Fose. He said one in three of those giving online to McCain were Generation Xs who had never contributed to a political campaign before.

"What the internet is allowing us to do is go after the non-establishment voter," he said. "The new voters, the new people who are contributing, the new volunteers who are signing up.

"Never before could you get those people involved in a campaign, and the internet's allowing them to get involved in the campaign now"

No one is quite sure why McCain - at 63, by far the oldest runner in the race - has benefited the most from the net. It has not done much for George Bush, but according to Jim Margolis, Bush does not need to be too worried.

"Major established candidates, like a George Bush, who's been able to go out and raise, you know, $60-70m through traditional means, that's going to continue to be the big source of where the dollars come," he said. "This is just going to be an additional tool which campaigns have, and an increasingly important one."

If politicians thought all they needed was a snazzy website, they will never see the inside of the White House.

The internet will not get you elected - but from now on, no US presidential hopeful can afford to be without it.