Whatever its fortunes come November, North Carolina's Libertarian Party has already won a big victory just by getting on the ballot. Playing a major role in that success was gubernatorial candidate Mike Munger, who moonlights as a poly sci professor at Duke (I wrote about Munger here; he's since cut his hair).

But Munger's not done yet. Excluded from the first debate of the campaign, he's been told that the League of Women Voters will include him in an upcoming debate if his poll numbers hit 5%. The strategy is to buy radio ads to boost those numbers -- but money was short, so Munger borrowed a page from the Ron Paul playbook, launching a "money bomb" (a concerted fund-raising effort) at his website and publicizing it via email and blogs.

The goal was a modest $3,000 -- Munger said it was more of a "money grenade" -- and the early-July effort yielded more than $7K. That's enough, Munger says, to buy two morning drive-time ads for a week in three of North Carolina's large media markets.

If the ads are clever -- perhaps focusing on getting Munger into the debates more than getting him elected -- that 5% number could be in reach.

In any case, it's an interesting use of the net as part of an integrated campaign strategy.