Click on Arizona Sen. John McCain’s Web site, and the main question is Visa, Mastercard or American Express. Pull up Texas Gov. George W. Bush’s campaign site, and a window pops up asking for donations. The story is the same for Vice President Al Gore and former diplomat Alan Keyes.

It appears that Internet political fund raising is becoming more prominent as each day of the campaign progresses. As of Feb. 11, the surging McCain campaign had more than $4 million raked in from Web donations, according to CNN, and many of the other candidates are not far behind.

ISU students and faculty said they see many benefits in the new cyber-donating trend.

“I think that it’s a good idea because it saves candidates the cost of a phone call to people that they are not even sure support the candidate,” said Garrett Toay, senior in agricultural business and GOP activist. “Over the Internet, people decide to contribute to the candidate on their own.”

Toay said he did not think Internet donations were going to become popular immediately, but they might appeal to younger voters.

“I think that it will catch on slowly, but it will catch on, especially with young people,” he said.

Brendan Cary, sophomore in mechanical engineering and GOP activist, said he also thought it was a good idea for candidates to solicit donations over the Internet.

“Any new facet used to contribute to candidates opens avenues for them. This is a really new thing,” he said.

Cary said although Internet donations could lose their novelty by the next presidential election, there are many positive aspects to this particular donation process that might make the Internet a potent fund-raising tool in the next campaign.

“I can see the newness wearing off, and people using it like anything else. It is a good idea because people can go on the Web site and get information about the candidate and then contribute to the campaign,” he said. “This will especially help individual donations because you can do it from a home computer.”

Iacovos Zachariades, systems supervisor specialist for the Greenlee School of Journalism and Communication, said the donations would have other benefits.

“It should be easy to track donations made over the Internet,” he said. “The Web site could have a database that keeps track of all the donations. The government could even have a database set up to add up all the donations as they are made on the campaign Web site. It would be easier way to keep track of everything.”

Cary and Toay both expressed concern over the safety of Internet donations because they usually require giving up a credit card number. Zachariades said, though, he thought the sites should be fine as long as they take proper security measures.

“It depends on how good the security is, but I think it would be as safe as giving a donation over the phone or the mail,” he said. “Of course, not all Web sites are secure.”