Candidates mix fundraising with contests

WASHINGTON, Oct. 2 (UPI) -- The 2008 U.S. presidential race has seen a string of promotions that marry campaign donations with contests that allow selected donors to meet the candidates.

The contests, which often involve mall donations, and sometimes don't require that a donation be made at all, have included a chance to watch a Democratic presidential debate with former U.S. President Bill Clinton if a donation was made to the campaign of Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., a letter-writing contest to win dinner with Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., and a Fenway Park trivia contest to win a barbecue dinner with Republican candidate Mitt Romney, the Christian Science Monitor reported Tuesday.

"I think it's just a fun way to keep people interested," James Kotecki, a video blogger at Politico.com, told the Monitor. "It's a very long campaign season, and so if we didn't have fun things now and then it would get pretty bad."

In addition to raising funds, the contests also helped candidates boost Web site traffic. Hillary Clinton's contest to find a theme song for her campaign drew more than 1 million visitors to her Web site and more than 200,000 online votes were cast for songs, the campaign said.