Paul Hackett may not win the race on Tuesday. Let's face it, this is an incredibly uphill battle. But, in the past week we've managed to alter the dynamics of the race, get national media attention for the candidate and if he wishes turned him into a rising political star, gotten the NRCC to spend a lot of money to "bury him," and perhaps altered the momentum in the Ohio political landscape.
There will be a lot of talk about all the money raised online, as there should be. But, let's put this in perspective. Only 6144 people have donated through Hackett's Act Blue site. An additional 486 have donated through the Eschaton community site. That's a relatively tiny percentage of what I imagine constitutes DFA's email list (which sent out the Hackett site) and what I guess is in the neighorhood of 1% of my daily unique pairs of eyeballs.
I don't write this to criticize people who haven't donated, or to lament the fact that it's "only" 486. I just write it to point out that in the scheme of things it really is a fairly small number of people who have made a difference. Just something to think about.