ASHINGTON - About 15,000 people will have a chance tonight to chat with President Clinton, and they won't even have to show up.
Clinton, skilled in the town meeting approach to public persuasion, is going virtual. Using new ''voice chat'' technology on the Internet, the president will field questions during a live, interactive ''town meeting'' for 90 minutes starting at 7 p.m. on the World Wide Web.
The event, sponsored by the Democratic Leadership Council, intends to promote the group's ''New Democrat'' ideas and detail how they fit into the information age, said council vice president Holly Page.
''It's our goal to give Americans a real voice,'' said council spokesman Matthew Frankel. ''They will have the opportunity to actually interact with the president, as FDR did with his fireside chats.''
The president, who has acknowledged being ''technologically challenged'' in his command of the Internet, will become part of a growing list of political candidates using the Web to reach voters, raising more than $1 million dollars and even doing grass-roots organizing through their Web sites.
Tonight's town meeting will be able to accommodate a maximum of 50,000 Web surfers into the virtual ''auditorium,'' said Kristi Dyer, spokeswoman for Excite@Home, which is running the technological side of the event.
The first 15,000 people who sign onto the site will be able to submit questions, which will be screened by council president Al From. Another 35,000 will be able to log on to watch and listen to Clinton and several other council members - including New Hampshire Governor Jeanne Shaheen and Maryland Lieutenant Governor Kathleen Kennedy Townsend - as they answer questions.
Clinton won't have to type his responses; someone else will key in his answers as he speaks. Because the voice chat technology operates like a television screen, people will be able to see and hear Clinton live on their computers.
Internet users who visit the site (townhallmeeting.excite.com) will also be able to view a text of the questions and answers at the bottom of the screen.
Excite@Home is donating advertising-free Web time for the program in exchange for the opportunity to promote itself and its three-month-old voice chat technology, Dyer said.
Interested surfers can begin signing up and downloading needed programs at about 6 p.m., Dyer said.
Meanwhile, Clinton's would-be successors have been aggressively using the Internet for their campaigns.
Democratic presidential candidate Bill Bradley has raised more than $900,000 through Web site fund-raising since December, said campaign consultant Lynn Reed. Vice President Al Gore, who did not start Internet fund-raising until June, has collected about $350,000 through his Web site, said spokesman Roger Salazar.
And fund-raising is only a small part of the candidates' e-campaigns. Organizing volunteers and reaching voters is much easier - and significantly cheaper - through the Internet, campaign staffers say.
When Bradley, for example, needed to find volunteers to canvass in New Hampshire during the summer, his campaign sent an e-mail to 5,000 supporters on the Eastern seaboard, getting about 300 responses.
The strategy accomplished in one click of the mouse what would have taken many hours and many dollars to do by phone, Reed said.
''We never expected these kinds of results,'' she said.
By contrast with some direct mail campaigns, the target audiences for the presidential contenders have expressed an interest in the respective candidates.
Bradley's campaign has separated its e-mail list along regional lines, and then sends reminders when Bradley is visiting a particular state.
Gore sends campaign updates to his Web site visitors once or twice weekly - a gesture that would have been far too time-consuming and expensive to do by mail, Salazar said. Gore also answers questions e-mailed to the site.
Republican George W. Bush is the only candidate to have a complete ''mirror'' site in Spanish, to appeal to Latino voters. The Bush campaign site also allows visitors to create their own Web pages, so news and campaign information will be tailored to the voter's home town and interests.
