According to the Associated Press, Barack Obama has raised $7.2 million for his presidential campaign over the two days following Super Tuesday! That is in addition to $32 million he raised in January. Most of this total is comprised of small donations from almost 700,000 individuals across the country, and 90% are through the web.

In 2004, Howard Dean pioneered the concept of using the internet to build grassroots support for his candidacy, but Barack Obama has perfected it.

It all starts with his website barackobama.com, a simple, elegant site that contains everything from instructions on setting up your own my.BarackObama networking website to a section on Kids for Obama that teaches children how to get involved with his campaign, including drawing a picture of Obama sitting in the White House. Highlighting the extent his campaign relies on the internet, the home page features a list of 18 social networks where fans can visit and interact with other Obama supporters including Facebook, Flickr and Eons.

If you sign up for the campaign’s mailing list, you receive short, almost daily emails from Barack and Michelle Obama with headlines like “Turn on your TV” when he was about to give his victory speech in Iowa or “Startling News” when Hillary Clinton announced she had loaned $5 million of her own money to her campaign. I doubt many people actually believe that the candidate is actually typing up emails at the last minute to send, but the connection and the immediacy are undeniable. Each email has a link to donate on BarackObama.com where you can make a donation of as little as $25, using a credit card.

Whether Barack Obama ends up being our next president or not, you can be sure candidates of the future will all be studying how his campaign used the internet to generate excitement and donations.