How did a political neophyte running for state representative in suburban Kansas City bring in $95,000 in contributions from across the country? Stick figures and a campaign slogan only a geek could love — or understand, for that matter.

Sean Tevis, a 39 year-old web designer dismayed by the door-to-door drudgery of local campaigning, took his campaign viral with a simple comic entitled, "Running for Office: It’s like a flamewar with a forum troll, but with an eventual winner."

Donations from system administrators, programmers and techies of all stripes came pouring in, making Tevis’ cartoon one of the most effective and original campaign fundraising efforts this year.

Candidates injecting humor into their online political campaigns seem to be a growing trend. Republican presidential hopeful John McCain is using a two-pronged strategy consisting of both mocking and ridiculing in an attempt to change perceptions of his op.

The McCain campaign posted a video entitled "Obama Love," on YouTube. The video features a series of reporters in various states of excitement over McCain’s opponent Barack Obama set to Frankie Valli’s "Can’t Take My Eyes Off You." The video was the McCain campaigns first YouTube hit, that is until Valli’s record label, Warner Music Group, had the video removed over a copyright claim.

The McCain campaign followed up by launching BarackBook, a FaceBook look-alike cleverly used to show Obama’s ties to controversial "friends" and featuring familiar updates such as, "Barack Obama is now friends with Antoin ‘Tony’ Rezko," and "William Ayers has updated his profile."

McCain may be winning more online battles, but Jonathan Martin of Politico makes the argument that conservatives are losing the online war.

While online Republicans chase the allure of punditry and commentary, Democrats and progressives are pursuing old-fashioned shoe-leather reporting, in a fashion reminiscent of 2004. Back then, the Drudge Report and other lesser-known conservative portals played a key role in defining John Kerry and pushing back against criticism of George W. Bush, such as when conservative bloggers debunked documents purportedly related to the president’s Air National Guard service.

Many conservatives have already conceded that complacency has ended their years of Internet dominance.