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Campaign contributions basics

Most folks are having a hard time figuring out what. I have to say I find the actual Kerry site to be incredibly obtuse. Like most overdesigned sites, it has a huge tab bar on the left and there is no search engine on so you can't find things. Here's the decoder ring using opensecrets.org. The best list of basics that I can find, although this doesn't cover the new 527 organizations, so you don't have to read the entire regulation at the Federal Election Commission:

1. Kerry Contribution. Right now, you can contribute $2,000 per person to Kerry. This is actually for the primary campaign, but it is the dollars that matter now to get the world out. You need to do this before June 25 because the dollars must be spent by then to be eligible for federal matching. Turns out that after a certain point, you can contribute another $2K/person for the general election, but that date is so late, most folks think it won't matter that much (hence why we don't reco putting the full $4K/person in right now, but go to the next group on the list)
2. Get a Code If you doing more raising you're going to do this, you really want to get a separate account code from Kerry (called strangely the Kerry Core for reasons I don't understand as an ex-marketing guy. The basic idea is that if you get others to donate, then they use your account code and you can keep track. A pretty good idea. For instance, this site's code is 00020450.
3. DNC Contribution is the way to contribute an additional $25K/person. This goes towards general issues advertising. If you are sending by check, then make sure to source code E002761 on there.
4. DNC Code. If you are going to be doing fund raising for the DNC yourself and want contributions to go to your code so you can track and they can, then you have to join ePatriots (I know, I know, more strange names. Basically, you get a personalized website and donations online and offline get a code. The main strange thing here is that you have first get a logon to the democrats.org account, then you sign up for this epatriots thing. You get two confirming emails, you have to click on the earlier one first to validate your email, then the second starts off gives you the account code.
5. ACT and MoveOn. Finally, if you want to give more, you can give an additional $25K/person to these two organizations. ACT (another strange unrememberable name IMHO), is the Soros vehicle. MoveOn has been around longer. These don't seem to have the account code thing as much, so you just contribute to ACT or MoveOn.org via your credit card again. Of the two sites, I have to say that MoveOn is the nicer looking, but it is hard to evaluate the effectiveness of 527 funds like this right now.