

Infographic: US campaign finances revealed - l33tbro
http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/interactive/2012/10/201210995526117912.html

======
regnum
Just to put these numbers into perspective, something the infographic fails to
do even though it slaps on the label "Big Money", Americans spend 15x more on
pet food than both political candidates and parties combined spend on
political speech.

[http://www.petfoodinstitute.org/Index.cfm?Page=USPetFoodSale...](http://www.petfoodinstitute.org/Index.cfm?Page=USPetFoodSales)

~~~
dr_doom
I don't know why comparing political donations to food puts these numbers in
perspective. A better comparison is other nations fundraising.

Canadians spend less on campaigns than the "biggest spenders" on that chart
combined, with 37 million citizens.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_political_financing_in_...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_political_financing_in_Canada)

During the 2010 presidential election Brazilians spent $2 billion on campaigns
and have ~200 million citizens.

[http://articles.cnn.com/2012-01-24/world/world_global-
campai...](http://articles.cnn.com/2012-01-24/world/world_global-campaign-
finance_1_party-spending-public-funding-political-parties/3?_s=PM:WORLD)

~~~
makmanalp
Because pets are a luxury, but political participation is a necessity for the
country to work properly.

~~~
andreasvc
Political donations are not a necessity for the country to work properly.

Pets may be a luxury, but once you have them feeding them is arguably a
necessity. What's missing is whether they are buying more luxurious food than
necessary.

Anyway, in the end it's a completely arbitrary comparison.

~~~
makmanalp
Point taken about having to feed them once you have them.

And I agree that political donations are not a necessity, but only if
donations are banned, which is not the case. If your opponents are getting
donations, then you are at a net loss if you don't. In that sense, being
idealistic does not get you supporters, and donations really _are_ necessary.

------
knowtheory
Yet another example of "Hot Topic" Data Journalism.

All of the "infographics" that are made this way break the web, and are
hostile to verifying the facts that they are claiming.

News orgs, please for the love of Journalism, stop making these.

~~~
ejfox
Can you expand on what you mean by "break the web"?

~~~
andreasvc
What I guess he means is that the content is not readily indexed by search
engines, and does not have a fluid layout which adapts to different screen
sizes such as with normal text. And perhaps the absence of linked sources.

------
kmfrk
Is it me, or are the proportions of a least the first graphic off?

Here are the data is in Wolfram|Alpha:
<http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=(0,+654.6),+(0,+536.3)>. I don't think
W|A supports bar charts for some reason.

Edward Tufte would not be pleased.

~~~
mceachen

      654.6 / 536.3 = 1.22
      232px / 195px = 1.19

------
ultramundane8
So I read a little bit more about Open Secrets on their website, and they
spare no detail in explaining what their data is used for. But does it say
anywhere how they get their data? If so, could someone kindly point it out for
me?

I would think that they simply compile reports from other places, but am
curious nonetheless.

~~~
Codhisattva
The data comes from the Federally mandated campaign finance reports. See
<http://www.fec.gov/disclosure.shtml>

So the data comes from the candidates themselves and the data is heavily
scrutinized for accuracy.

~~~
ultramundane8
Thanks!

------
grecy
I wonder how much money would have to be raised before everyone acknowledged
this is not even close to democracy and political leaders are just being
bought.

i.e. Next election a Super PAC backed by health insurance companies spends $20
Billion for the candidate they want.

Surely this can't go on.

------
PaulHoule
Unusually, this is a ~good~ infographic!

~~~
geogra4
And a depressing one, at that!

------
goatforce5
Huh. As a non-American I was under the impression that the Romney camp was
significantly out-spending Obama.

What do the numbers look like if you add the earlier spending by the various
Republican presidential candidates?

~~~
sixothree
This impression may come from the money being spent supporting Romney by
'unaffiliated' Super PACs.

~~~
goatforce5
Aha. This is almost certainly the reason I was thinking that.

------
mratzloff
Interesting, but the text is so blurry I can't read it half the time.

------
nphrk
Very interesting, I have only one nitpick (maybe for the paranoid only) : why
not show the cumulative distribution but pick 200$ as a threshold?

------
kokey
There is something about Morgan Freeman giving $1m to the Obama campaign that
I find comical, but I can't figure out why.

~~~
TimGebhardt
Maybe because he played a US president in a movie about a meteor hitting the
Earth?

