Fundrace

In class, Professor Lazer mentioned a website called "Fundrace", where you can see who has contributed what amounts of money to which political candidates. I thought this sounded very intriguing, so I googled the website, and found that it is part of The Huffington Post. The little blurb about it at the top of the page says "FundRace makes it easy to search by name or address to see which candidates or political parties your friends, family, co-workers, and neighbors are contributing to. Or you can see if your favorite celebrity is putting money where their mouth is, who America's big companies are backing, and search contributions by location and occupation.". Not only does it tell you how much the person donated and to whom, it shows their occupation and also pinpoints where they live on a map.

Going along with our discussion in class about who you talk to about politics, I thought this was very interesting. Although entertaining (I just wasted about 10-15 minutes looking up various celebrities), in my opinion this website is pretty nosy. If you already know a friend or acquaintance's political views and affiliations, you're probably not going to use this website to look them up. This site also reveals economic information that is generally kept quiet as well. When searched, it is revealed that some people donated $10 to candidates, while some have donated many thousands of dollars, which is financial information some people may not want lots of people to know. My guess is most people would use this website to learn about the political leanings of people in their lives that they know but do not feel comfortable with asking or discussing politics. I suppose that if people are donating money to a candidate or cause, they are probably not as private or secretive about their political views as someone who chooses not to, but I still find it a little intrusive. If you don't know someone well enough to know their political views, or if what party they belong to isn't pertinent enough to your relationship that you've never discussed it before, why would you feel the need to go on this website and somewhat creepily search for them?

I will say that this site provides interesting demographic information. It is interesting to search people by occupations and regions in the country. For example, a search for "teachers" shows that 70% of teachers that donated money in 2010, donated it to a Democratic candidate or cause; and 59% of contributers from my hometown contributed to Republican candidates in 2010. In this way, the site can be a harmless tool to look at networks of people and how they view politics.