connecting*the*dots

(illustration by Serifcan Özcan)

Good Magazine
Political NASCAR
by Morgan Clendaniel

In the 2006 midterms, Senators Hillary Clinton (D-NY) and Rick Santorum (R-PA), both running for re-election, have raised the most money of any candidate in their respective parties. Here are the NASCAR-style uniforms they would wear if companies were proud of their political donations, and if running for senate required a flame-retardant suit.

HILLARY CLINTON
Hillary Clinton’s top contributions by sector
Finance, Insurance, Real Estate $4,650,601
Lawyers & Lobbyists $3,533,740
Other $3,258,584
Miscellaneous Business $2,332,809
Communications/Electronics $1,808,119
Health $1,122,341
Construction $521,796
Ideology/Single-Issue $432,270
Labor $340,545
Agribusiness $211,565
Energy/Natural Resource $206,462
Transportation $118,210
Defense $86,050

TOTAL (as of June 30th): $33,180,949

RICK SANTORUM
Rick Santorum’s top contributors by sector
Finance, Insurance, Real Estate $2,812,841
Miscellaneous Business $1,373,537
Lawyers & Lobbyists $1,357,125
Health $1,258,021
Other $1,243,951
Construction $666,015
Energy/Natural Resource $651,541
Ideology/Single-Issue $563,073
Communications/Electronics $474,990
Agribusiness $399,237
Transportation $299,574
Defense $76,000
Labor $56,706

TOTAL (as of June 30th): $17,252,473

Like many people, I often think about the chasm in the relationship between our state representatives and us, the constituents; how in so many cases, our elected representatives tend to not represent the desires of the people that put them in office, instead succumbing to the efforts of lobbyists and special interest groups.

While the concept of wearing logos on campaign duds is probably a bit too extreme for our culture, someone really needs to build a web site that displays such contributions and relationships in an easy to digest manner, across numerous data slices. I assume that the information is already available to the public; the big question is whether or not it’s being gathered, managed and distributed in the most open formats available.

I mean, can I get an RSS feed of newly submitted documentation of Clinton, Santorum and, say, Vernon Robinson campaign contributions?

If the answer is no, then why the hell not?

Maybe when the Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency Act (S. 2590) is finally passed, we can start serious work on the infrastructure and interfaces that support centralized repositories for decentralized accountability. Or is this not sexy enough to fit into the social networking investment craze of Web 2.0?

(via BoingBoing)

Vernon’s made a new buddy-in-hate, good ol’ boy Rush Limbaugh… and he’s bubbling over with joy. Hmm.. let me try to recreate the vibe of Vern’s email newsletter for you:

RUSH: You’ve gotta hear this campaign commercial. There’s a man running for office as a Republican, running for Congress in … North Carolina. His name is Vernon Robinson. The audio is what we have here, obviously. The video to his commercial is … on his website. (Laughing.) I don’t even want to characterize it. Just listen to this commercial.

RUSH: Goes out with Leave It To Beaver music. I should point out Vernon Robinson is black, and when he mentions Sharpton and Jackson — have you seen the spot? When he gets to Jackson, he found a mug shot of Jesse Jackson and that’s what he runs and he found a picture of Sharpton with an Afro from years and years ago. (Laughing.) This is a national campaign. I mean, he’s talking about national issues. They all have impact locally, but I thought it was the Democrats that were going to nationalize the election this year! I thought Democrats were going to do that. That is Vernon Robinson who is running for Congress … He’s getting grief like you can’t believe. This is one of the best political ads in a long, long time, and can I ask you: When you heard that, folks, when you heard that, weren’t you going, “Yeah! Okay, yeah, yeah,” and, “Why don’t more Republicans talk like this? Why don’t more of them say these are the problems that we face?” And here’s Vernon Robinson in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, saying: I’m a pioneer, and I will take the arrows.
…

RUSH: Myrtle Beach, South Carolina - this is Jean. Welcome to the program.

JEAN: Well hello, mega dittos. … I wanted to say Vernon is a man.

RUSH: Do you know Vernon Robinson?

JEAN: No. I don’t know him personally. I just love his ah what can you say. He stands for something, regardless.

RUSH: Yes he does.

JEAN: I love a man. That’s my man.

RUSH: He stands for a lot of things.

JEAN: Yes. Besides yourself, that’s one I wouldn’t mind marrying.

RUSH: (Laughing) … I’ll tell you what’s do. She’s calling about an ad. Vernon Robinson is running for Congress as a Republican in … North Carolina. He has one of the best television ads out there in a long time. We have the audio to it. We are going to link to this at rushlimbaugh.com, link to his website because the video of this ad will start playing automatically once you log on to his website. … We mention Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton in this ad. And the picture of the Reverend Jackson in this ad is his mugshot. … The picture of the Reverend Sharpton is back in the big jewelry, big hair, heavier days. I think he’s got a medallion on. He’s wearing a cleric’s collar …

RUSH: And of course it concludes with Leave it to Beaver type music. That is just a great, great ad. And by the way, again we were told the Democrats are going to be running a national campaign in their House races this year. Sounds to me like Vernon Robinson, who is black by the way, and he is a target now, they are targeting this guy like - he’s going to be targeted not to the extent Clarence Thomas was — but maybe Michael Steele, Ken Blackwell, Lynn Swann. This is, I mean pardon the French here, this is off the plantation. He has escaped and wandered off the liberal Democrat plantation. This is not allowed. This is not permitted. If they could, they’d grab this guy and send him to One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest and let Hillary as Nurse Ratchet try to get his mind right. Either that or send him to the warden in Cool Hand Luke and put him in the box. I can’t tell you folks. This wouldn’t have happened 20 years ago. You wouldn’t have had a black … congressional candidate in North Carolina running a spot like this. And mocking the Reverend Jackson and Al Sharpton. But it’s a new day out there. Vernon Robinson, Winston-Salem, North Carolina.
…

RUSH: Folks, don’t panic out there. Vernon Robinson’s website is not broken. The link is not broken. We’ve just shut down their server. We’ve overloaded the server at the Vernon Robinson campaign site where we’ve got the link posted to see his great TV ad. Just be patient. And as people get in and get out of there, the traffic will subside and you will be able to get in. But the site’s working fine. We’ve sent more people than their server can handle and this happens, we shut down servers routinely on this program.

Without your immediate financial support, Vernon cannot create new ads and put them on TV and radio! Please help Vernon make more ads that Rush Limbaugh says every Republican should be using.

Limbaugh played the Robinson ad twice. It was almost as if he was thinking, “Yeehaw! Someone else can hate more than me!” Remember kids, free speech is a beautiful thing, as it can help us find the bigots amongst us!

Look, I’m pro-choice, yet I completely understand the opposition to abortion (the act). Everyone does. It’s safe to say that no woman has ever approached an abortion with a gleam in her eye.

This moral commonality — distinctly human — is what makes the debate between the pro-choice and anti-choice crowds so emotionally charged.

The question I pose to you is the following: If you are anti-choice, is the above discourse an example of the type of response that you want your Congresspersonto engage in?

If so, then where do our moral standards come into play? And if elected, how would Robinson’s tone affect his relationships with the rest of Congress and us — the constituents — across various topical issues?

(via Jay Ovittore)

Original coverage: Vernon Robinson: Not In My House

From PJ Puryear, US House Representative Brad Miller’s campaign manager:

Blogsboro,

Congressman Brad Miller will be coming to Greensboro on April 24th specifically to meet bloggers. We’ve (both the campaign and bloggers in the area) have been wanting to do this for some time; better late than never!

While not having his own blog, Brad keeps a diary at DailyKos and has posted at BlueNC, and is interested in getting to know the blogging community. I would be remiss if I didn’t say that we are there in hopes of finding ways to improve our campaign, both technologically and by continuing to build our network of supporters (which we hope will include the blogging community). We will be meeting from 7pm to 9pm at Green Bean on S. Elm St.

Hope to see you there!

PJ Puryear aka Tarheel Dem

I’m not sure what I plan on asking Brad, but I’m very interested in meeting the man who is campaigning against the uber conservative, bigoted, self-hating Vernon Robinson.

(thanks to Jay Ovittore)

I may have just moved to Greensboro last September, but this guy will never represent the community I live in.

“Traditional American values?”

I’m surprised he didn’t offer to bail some hay.