A newly improved
political website lets you peek into the financial affairs of friends, neighbors
and celebrities without the risk of a restraining order. The site, http://www.fundrace.org/ , takes existing
political contribution data available on the Federal Election Commission's site,
http://www.fec.gov/ , and jazzes it up with
colorful, easy-to-use search functions and maps.
Designed by a team at
the New York City creative nonprofit Eyebeam, the site allows visitors to dig
around by name and ZIP Code to find out who's shelling out, how much and for
which candidates. The site's value lies in "what can you learn about the rest
of the world, using who and how much they've contributed as the lens," said
creator Mike Frumin, 25, of Brooklyn.
Fascinating tidbits include how
Donald Trump hedged his bets, giving the maximum $2,000 to both Democrat John F.
Kerry and President Bush, and that hip-hop mogul Russell Simmons spread the love
among six Democratic candidates, giving the most $2,000 to the Rev. Al
Sharpton of New York.
Detailed national and city maps illustrate the
precise origins of all this money. A swath of blue Democratic dots covers Boston
and Cambridge, Mass., the home of Harvard University, while Houston and St.
Louis are dominated by pink Republican dots.
"I think large chunks of
data are hard to relate to," said Jonah Peretti, 30, the director of research
and development at Eyebeam, which promotes artistic and technological projects.
Instead, the site "gives you a context so that you can start doing your own
investigations."
Traffic to the site has exploded from a trickle of
1,000 or fewer hits a day at its launch last fall to an estimated 100,000
visitors a day after its redesign this month. The increase stems from
word-of-mouth buzz on blogs and sites like http://www.lavoice.org/ , and a mention by
Associated Press.
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Active in Spirit
Liberal college
students interested in political participation can skip the drudgery of marching
in time-consuming protests or canvassing neighborhoods with petitions and
instead raise money from the comfort of their dorm rooms.
A new site
connected with the progressive group MoveOn.org replaces real-life activism with
the virtual kind. ClickbackAmerica.org encourages students to sign petitions and
join its online political efforts. Each time a young person participates, one
dollar is donated to MoveOn's Voter Fund, which works to put progressive
advertisements on the air.
"This is a new way of instilling activism in
college kids," said Ari Rabin-Havt, 25, the site's executive director and a
graduate student in political management at George Washington University in
Washington, D.C.
The organization's goal is to raise $1 million. The
seed? Money will come from Democratic donor Stephen Bing. Universities and
colleges are ranked by their participation and subsequent money raised; more
than 1,800 schools have signed up in the last two weeks. The top fundraising
school will receive a visit from a surprise celebrity to thank them for their
efforts. Last week UC Berkeley was in the lead, contributing $378 to the
estimated $65,000 raised so far.
"I definitely think we'll hit [$1
million] by November," Rabin-Havt said.
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Watch Your
Language
U.S. presidents are expected to be masters in communication
but only in English. Only rarely have the leaders of the free world been able
to chat about politics or anything at all in a tongue other than English.
But Bush and Kerry, the presumptive Democratic presidential candidate,
are bucking the trend, with proficiency in three romance languages between
them.
Bush has famously fielded questions from reporters in Spanish and
sprinkled passable Spanglish into his speeches.
"A candidate who can
speak a foreign language can pick up an ethnic minority and impress them," said
Craig Smith, a professor of communication studies at Cal State Long Beach and
former speechwriter for Gerald Ford and George H.W. Bush.
"That Bush
comes out of Texas and can speak Spanish is important to Latinos and Latinas and
is going to help him with that swing voting group," Smith said.
Kerry
knows French and Italian, and has supposedly been boning up on
espa๑ol.
And if Kerry bungles his verb conjugations, he can always
fall back on wife Teresa Heinz Kerry, who speaks five languages, including
Portuguese, French and Spanish.
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Who's
Counting?
213: Number of late-night jokes made about Bush from Jan. 1
through March 9, according to a Center for Media and Public Affairs
study.
53: Number of late-night jokes cracked about Kerry during the same
period.
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Compiled from staff, Web and wire reports by Times
staff researcher Susannah Rosenblatt.
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