State Money Analysis: Florida in 2008
Over the last month, I’ve been working with Edwin Bender and The National Institute on Money in State Politics (NIMST), which operates FollowTheMoney.org. This not-for-profit organization provides a database similar to the Sunlight Foundation’s database of political donations, but NIMST focuses exclusively on state elections.
Their data has been featured prominently in many publications. Most recently, I came across it in the New York Times article “Health Lobby Takes Fight to the States,” which cites the NIMST report “Take $2 Million…and Call Me in the Session Health Care Interests Gave Healthy Doses of Contributions.”
This is an excellent use of this type of data. I encourage you to read the article and the report.
For a test run, NIMST gave me a sample set of data to process in Jute. Admittedly, I have not perfected the analytic techniques here and there is a lot more work to do to make the data relevant. Edwin Bender said to me in a prescient email
“Clay Johnson of Sunlight Foundation said recently that data visualizations are a dime a dozen, but meaningful visualizations are priceless.”
These are the top 5 donors to state candidates in FL in 2008. The largest donations went to the FL Republican Party. These donors give a large number of $500 donations (shown in orange).
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So this is my first attempt at meaningful visualization. I give myself a “B-” on it. I took the data from FL, a state where I’m familiar with state politics after playing a prominent volunteering role with my mother’s unsuccessful run at the state house in 2008.* In the following visualizations, there is a very simple visual index: REPUBLICAN = RED; DEMOCRAT = BLUE; $500 DONATION = ORANGE.
The interesting about this is:
1) The top donors in the state are largely bi-partisan in their giving. Why? Do their recipients sit on influential committees? Is there a specific piece of legislation they wanted to support? A specific fundraising volunteer who brokered these donations?
2) There are a surprising number of $500 donations. Why so many?! What is the significance of a $500 donation to a state official? UPDATED: ”$500 is the legal limit for a campaign contribution to an individual candidate. That amount can be given once during the primary and once during the general election.” according to Linda McDonald, my mother.
Why? I’m not sure. I hope this blog post will help me find out.
FYI: you can access this data set in a network document called “state money FL v1″ by using the Jute guest account. Or, request your own account and I’ll share the data set with you.
Top 2 Donors in FL State Politics in 2008
These are the top 2 donors in FL state politics. What is their political bias?
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Paul Tudor Jones, II
Mr. Jones supports candidates from both parties and both parties' state offices. Why?
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Guy M. Spearman, III
Guy M. Spearman, III also supports candidates from both parties and both parties' state offices. Why?
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Whole Network Analysis: Top 5 FL Donors
Whole Network Analysis shows a surprising number of $500 donations among the top 5 donors in FL state politics in 2008. $500 is the maximum donation permitted.
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Assumed Industry Affiliation
By extrapolating industry affiliations from the companies where donors self-report that they work, we can look at trends of how industries' money flows to parties. This is not really a factually valid analysis--just an exercise in using Jute to crunch NIMST data.
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Finding meaning in this data…
This data set is just a trial, and this blog post is just to get some initial feedback. My hope is that we can elevate this into a funded research project, analyzing trends in the NIMST data, and finding specific, relevant examples that we can publish. Also, I’d like to work with a campaign to help them in their fundraising and strategy development.
There is a lot more than needs to be done to “take this to the next level.” That includes:
Cross-referencing this data with other data sets, like: which campaigns actually won seats in the State Legislature; which committees the elected officials sit on and chair; which federal candidates these donors supported; and, ideally, which candidates I know (or my clients know) and how they can leverage existing relationships to get value out of this analysis. (That last one comes from existing, internal databases.)
But for now, I hope you’ll help me find meaning in this data. If you’d like access to more analysis from other states, or you are interested in publishing this material, please contact me via email or via phone at 828/545.9539.
Sean McDonald
co-founder, Jute Networks
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*A little editorial here: Linda McDonald ran a hell of a campaign against a competitor with an exponentially larger war chest. In a district where a Dem hadn’t had a chance in a generation, she lost by a razor thin margin. And the people of the state of Florida are worse-off because she doesn’t represent them.
Trent Reznor is an Entrepreneur
If I go onstage I want to give people everything they want and more. I’ll wash their car for them on their way out. -Trent Reznor
Trent’s a musician…but also an entrepreneur. My kind of entrepreneur…
-Sean
From avclub.com via US Airways in-flight magazine
SoCalTech.com Interview with Sean McDonald
Ben Kuo from SoCalTech.com sat down with Jute co-founder Sean McDonald last week. Ben’s posted the interview on his site, which is the leading source of information about the venture / startup industry and culture in Southern California.
Read the article and check out the rest of SoCalTech while you’re there.
Blast from the past…
Last summer, we rolled out Jute PublicMaps (which is no longer available…).
I was cleaning out our YouTube account to get ready to post some new videos and I found this old video still up there. PublicMaps was pretty cool if you ask me…
Enjoy!
Sean
Using Meetup.com in the Los Angeles Area
Sean McDonald here, co-founder and sales guy for Jute Networks. Among the many big changes at our company in the past couple months is my move to California to seek new relationships for the company. (And, admittedly, enjoy some time at the beach…)
I’ve spent the last ten years in Asheville, NC, which as I know it, is one of the greatest places a person could ever live. From mountain biking to microbreweries, if you like adventure and progressive culture, Asheville is a wonderland. However, it’s a small town, with less than 100k people in the greater metro area. While there is an emerging culture of innovation and entrepreneurship, it’ll be a few more years until it catches up with Los Angeles…
Things are different in Southern CA. New to town, knowing only a handful of people, I’ve successfully started networking with peers in the technology industry (as well as fellow mountain biking enthusiasts) with a good deal of success. Meetup.com has been the hub of connection for me, but I’ve also used Facebook and Twitter to connect with people in the area, in-person and virtually. These tools, which in this case are connecting complete strangers, do a great job of sparking connections–and it takes just minutes to get involved.
The people I’ve met have been not just amiable, but downright helpful, going out of their way to welcome a new guy to the area. In a town known the world round for a pretentious attitude, I’ve found most people to be friendly and fun to talk to.
I was listening to a podcast from the Stanford Entrepreneurial Thought Leaders featuring Sheryl Sandberg over the weekend. She said the big vision of her former employer, Google, was to “organize the world’s information and make it useful.” She said the big, giant vision of Facebook, where she is now COO, is to make the web “real” — to give people real identities, honest interaction online. Meetup is in that vein–real people having real meetings with real results. All accomplished in less than a minute of searching a free-to-use ($$ to host a Group) online tool.
That’s a big deal.
If you’re in the LA area-specifically Santa Monica or Venice where I am–contact me. Let’s meetup meet up.