{"id":5241,"date":"2008-06-10T13:40:26","date_gmt":"2008-06-10T18:40:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sepiamutiny.com?p=5241"},"modified":"2008-06-10T12:31:46","modified_gmt":"2008-06-10T17:31:46","slug":"put_your_money","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/sepiamutiny.com\/blog\/2008\/06\/10\/put_your_money\/","title":{"rendered":"Put Your Money Where Your <i>Munh<\/i> Is"},"content":{"rendered":"<blockquote>Want to know if a celebrity is playing both sides of the fence? Whether that new guy you&#8217;re seeing is actually a Republican or just dresses like one? If your boss maxed out at that fundraiser or got comped? Whether your neighbor&#8217;s political involvement stops at that hideous lawn sign?<\/blockquote>\n\n<p>Hell, <i>yes<\/i>!<\/p>\n\n<blockquote>FundRace gives you the technology to do what politicians and journalists have been doing for years: find out where the money&#8217;s coming from, see who it&#8217;s going to, and solve the mystery of why that crazy ex-roommate of yours is now the Ambassador to Turks and Caicos.<\/blockquote>\n\n<p>Using public records filed with the FEC of all contributions greater than $200, <a href=\"http:\/\/fundrace.huffingtonpost.com\/widget.php\">FundRace<\/a>  calculates the who, where, and how much of hard\/soft cash going to political parties\/candidates\/PACs.  I&#8217;m all agog at the technological marvels that produce such transparency.<\/p>\n\n<p>Nosing around a bit, I came up with:<\/p>\n\n<p>Jhumpa Lahiri, Writer, gave $250 to the DNC<br>\nKalpen Modi, Actor, gave $1,395 to Barack Obama<br>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Atul_Gawande\">Atul Gawande<\/a>, Surgeon, gave $250 to John Kerry<br>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Aziz_Ansari\">Aziz Ansari<\/a>, Producer\/Actor, gave $1,150 to Barack Obama<br>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Vikram_Pandit\">Vikram Pandit<\/a>, (current CEO at Citigroup, then COO at Morgan Stanley), gave $2,000 to George W. Bush<\/p>\n\n<p><center><script type='text\/javascript' src='http:\/\/fundrace.huffingtonpost.com\/widget\/?w=tabbed_lite.php'><\/script><\/center>\n<!--more-->Searching by last name only generates results like this:<br>\n$407,448 was given by people who identified their last name as &#8220;Singh&#8221; <br>\n $98,952 from 63 people to Republicans<br>\n $308,496 from 185 people to Democrats<br><\/p>\n\n<p>$330,376 was given by people who identified their last name as &#8220;Gupta&#8221; <br>\n $42,850 from 28 people to Republicans<br>\n $287,526 from 96 people to Democrats<br><\/p>\n\n<p><FONT \nstyle=\"BACKGROUND-COLOR: #FFFFCC\">Rather amusingly, $4,945 was given by people who identified their last name as &#8220;Jindal&#8221; <br>\n $0 to Republicans<br>\n $4,945 from 5 people to Democrats<br><\/FONT><\/p>\n\n<p>In my entirely unscientific survey, all the desi names generated more Democratic donors than Republican. Interesting since I thought the balance, based on political punditry and SM commenters, would tilt towards the GOP. Also found loads of PAC contributors, especially to energy\/engineering\/science based PACs like the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.opensecrets.org\/pacs\/lookup2.php?strID=C00215285\">General Atomics Political Action Committee<\/a>. Time to see how that moron in your lab got all that grant money!<\/p>\n\n<p>You can find relatives, neighbours, friends, co-workers, celebrities&#8230;anyone who donated more than $200, really.  The map pinpoints addresses with rather startling accuracy.  You can also search by occupation:<br><br>\n$86,577 was given by people who identified their occupation as &#8220;Mathematician&#8221; <br>\n $13,740 from 18 people to Republicans<br>\n $72,837 from 98 people to Democrats<br><\/p>\n\n<p>I searched for donations from Astronauts, but, sadly, got no results. Oh, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.sepiamutiny.com\/sepia\/archives\/001543.html\">Abhi<\/a>&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Want to know if a celebrity is playing both sides of the fence? Whether that new guy you&#8217;re seeing is actually a Republican or just dresses like one? If your boss maxed out at that fundraiser or got comped? Whether &hellip; <a href=\"http:\/\/sepiamutiny.com\/blog\/2008\/06\/10\/put_your_money\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[3,9],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/sepiamutiny.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5241"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/sepiamutiny.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/sepiamutiny.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sepiamutiny.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sepiamutiny.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5241"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/sepiamutiny.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5241\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/sepiamutiny.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5241"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sepiamutiny.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5241"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sepiamutiny.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5241"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}