open secrets

Opensecret.org (http://www.crp.org/) is a great site for researching finance contributions. It's a bipartisan research group. The page is laid out well and easy to use, and there isn't much (that I can see) slant at all. Here's an example. I looked up the top contributors to the campaigns of Howard Dean, John Kerry, and George Bush. I got the following numbers, and no editorial.

HOWARD DEAN (D)

University of California $86,629
Time Warner $78,736
Microsoft Corp $52,122
Harvard University $43,900
IBM Corp $39,835
Morgan Stanley $29,350
Dean for America $27,578
Citigroup Inc $26,386
Goldman Sachs $24,500
Stanford University $24,380
US Government $23,411
Viacom Inc $22,750
State of California $22,000
Emory University $21,900
Dartmouth College $21,300
State of Vermont $21,280
University of Washington $21,137
News Corp $20,850
Skadden, Arps et al $20,554
Walt Disney Co $20,400

JOHN KERRY (D)

University of California $623,725
Harvard University $356,089
Time Warner $310,775
Goldman Sachs$298,750
Citigroup Inc $279,881
Microsoft Corp $278,597
Skadden, Arps et al $259,077
UBS Americas $212,200
JP Morgan Chase & Co $205,265
Wilmer, Cutler et al $200,386
Stanford University $189,599
IBM Corp $189,190
US Government $187,626
Morgan Stanley $180,979
Robins, Kaplan et al $177,650
Viacom Inc $175,196
Bank of America $168,502
Piper Rudnick LLP $166,403
Columbia University $157,740
Akin, Gump et al $152,754

GEORGE W. BUSH (R)

Morgan Stanley $600,480
Merrill Lynch $580,004
PriceWaterhouseCoopers $512,500
UBS Americas $468,075
Goldman Sachs $388,600
MBNA Corp $354,350
Credit Suisse First Boston $330,040
Lehman Brothers $327,725
Citigroup Inc $318,370
Bear Stearns $309,150
Ernst & Young $300,140
Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu $290,450
US Government $280,686
Wachovia Corp $275,060
Ameriquest Capital $248,650
Blank Rome LLP $221,650
Bank of America $217,261
JP Morgan Chase & Co $205,400
Microsoft Corp $197,425
Southern Co $192,432

And then you get to draw your own conclusions. Like that Microsoft will back anybody. Or form theories. Like, "did Disney plan on gettin a movie deal out of the Dean campaign?" Or weap a little when you realize that George W. Bush was backed almost solidly by credit companies and investment firms.

I think that for me this was the most disturbing article. It details the individuals in both house and senate voting on the bankruptcy reform bill, and how much money they have received from the cretid card companies.