Win a debate date with ... Bill Clinton?

The subject line on the e-mail from Bill Clinton was enough to grab the attention even of a political reporter with an overflowing inbox: "You, me, a TV and a bowl of chips."

The deal was, donate to his wife's presidential campaign by midnight Sept. 30, and you'd have a chance to watch a campaign debate with the former president. Three winners will be selected at random, and each can bring a guest.

"I'm excited about this idea because it involves three things I really enjoy: watching debates, watching Hillary run for president, and meeting her strongest supporters," read the e-mail.

This is the year when presidential campaigns met the sweepstakes giveaway: Put your feet up with Bill Clinton. Have dinner with Barack Obama. Vote to have John Edwards come to your town. Answer some trivia questions about Fenway Park and win an expense-paid trip to a barbecue dinner with Mitt Romney.

As a cultural phenomenon, the 2008 marriage of campaigns and contests seems to fit the times. Just as anyone with a modicum of talent or beauty can get their 15 minutes of fame on "American Idol" or "America's Next Top Model," so too can average-Joe political supporters win a moment in the spotlight – or at least the gaze of a famous politician.

Some contests have been linked to fundraising, raising questions of whether they are the 2008 version of allowing preferred donors to sleep in the Lincoln Bedroom, a practice President Clinton himself was accused of in 1996. In fact, the contests are aimed at the small donors, not the high-rollers. And the fine print for the Clintons' debate-watching sweepstakes indicates that a donation is not required to enter. The same was true for Senator McCain's contest for donors: Win a ride on the Straight Talk Express.

Still, as the third quarter of 2007 closed on Sunday night, contests have proved a useful gimmick for candidates trying to squeeze out as many campaign dollars as possible from donors (though final numbers were not available at the time of writing).

In a campaign that even the hardiest political junkies say has dragged on way too long, contests like these have become a staple for many of the candidates as a way to break the tedium of endless speeches, town-hall meetings, and policy debates.

But there's also a danger, it would seem, that contests trivialize the important process of selecting the nation's next president. James Kotecki, a video blogger, or "vlogger," at Politico.com, disagrees.

"I think it's just a fun way to keep people interested," he says. "It's a very long campaign season, and so if we didn't have fun things now and then it would get pretty bad."

If nothing else, the contests have generated a bonanza of Web traffic. Web videos announcing Clinton's month-long contest for a theme song drew more than a million views, according to the campaign, and more than 200,000 online votes were cast.

The day Clinton announced the winning song, in a video send-up of the finale of the HBO series "The Sopranos," her website got more hits – some half a million – than it did the day of her candidacy announcement.

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