Amazon.com
has launched a new one-stop shop for donating to presidential candidates. It's kind of interesting in that their only criteria are having an FEC-listed campaign committee and a minimum of $5000 raised/spent.
My first question of course, was, "what does amazon" get for this? It turns out that while they are charging their regular amazon payments fees, they will donate the aggregate that they've collected to Kids Voting USA.
You're almost certainly better off contributing directly to the campaign of your choice (since their credit card fees will be lower than the amazon payments fee, and if you really want to make every penny count, a check sent through the mail is the best way yet), but it's interesting if only because it includes a number of the fringe candidates. Not all candidates have contribution buttons yet either (all the majors are there with the exceptions of Bush and Lieberman).
I think the most notable part of this is that it will broaden exposure of the candidates to many people who might not view regular news sources, but are frequent amazon visitors (I've met more than a few people who make daily amazon visits!). Plus amazon gets the free publicity from the inevitable feature stories about the experiment and bloggers like me adding their comments.