Jeremy's Weblog

I recently graduated from Harvard Law School. This is my weblog. It tries to be funny. E-mail me if you like it. For an index of what's lurking in the archives, sorted by category, click here.

Friday, March 19, 2004

A bunch of weblogs have linked to Open Secrets in the last few days, a website that lets you look up what political candidates people are donating to. Among the interesting bits of information I uncovered (scandalous even):

1. George Washington, of Atlanta, GA, gave $250 to Norm Coleman and $500 to Max Cleland. Neither are Federalists.
2. John Adams, of Berkeley, CA, gave $500 to Howard Dean.
3. Thomas Jefferson, of Bloomington, IL, gave $250 to John M. Shimkus, and $500 to Dennis Hastert.
4. James Madison, of Middletown, CT, gave $339 to the Libertarian National Committee, which means his views seem to have changed radically since he wrote the Federalist Papers.
5. James Monroe, of Wicheta, KS (that's how he spelled it) has given almost $2000 to Pat Buchanan. Clearly no longer supporting the Monroe Doctrine, I say trying to be clever but not even completely sure if that makes any sense, or even if it does if any of my readers will get it.
6. John Q. Adams of Tampa, FL gave $200 to the Republican National Committee. Again with the party-switching.
7. Andrew Jackson, a student in Mississippi, gave $200 to John Kerry. Well, they do kind of look alike.
8. Many members of the Van Buren family have given money to Arlen Specter. None named Martin or with the first initial M.
9. Dr. William H. Harrison of North Carolina gave money to Elizabeth Dole. Perhaps if President WH Harrison had been a doctor he would have known to put a coat on during his inaugural and wouldn't have gotten sick and died so quickly.
10. John Tyler, a lawyer in Texas, gave money to John Edwards and Hillary Clinton. President Tyler had 17 children.
11. James K. Polk (even got the middle initial right) of North Carolina gave money to Elizabeth Dole. She seems to be popular among North Carolinians who share their names with former presidents.
12. Zachary Taylor of Helena, MT gave $1000 to Michael Taylor. Maybe related? I guess people are allowed to give money to relatives running for office, right?
13. I guess I'm not really that surprised there are no "Millard Fillmore"s in the donor database.
14. Franklin Pierce of Texas gave money to John Carter. He's the doctor on ER played by Noah Wyle, right?
15. James Buchanan of Kentucky gave money to Michael Oxley. No idea.
16. Abe Lincoln of upstate New York gave money to the National Federation of Independent Businesses.

Okay, that's enough. Interesting, right?