came across this very well done web app (via futurismic) which helps visualize the way money influences politics, specifically the connections and magnetic force exerted between u.s. senators and their contributors. some interesting patterns emerge and some odd confluences of interest as well.

from the site:
this is a dynamic visualization of the relationship of the members of the u.s. senate to different sources of campaign funding each green + represents a source of lobbyist funding in washington. the size of the + indicates the relative amount of funding that sector has input into the political process. the collage of dots are representations of u.s. senators. their coloring reflects party affiliation, while their size indicates the amount of money they have accumulated in their campaign funds…

in this simulation, the senators are attracted to the lobbyist groups based on the amount of money their campaign has received from that source. by moving one of the funding + around the screen, you can see how much force it exerts on each senator.

interesting. if you click on the control panel link you can see the data for each senator in more detail as well as introduce more variables. for instance in the screen captures below i added christian coalition affiliation into the mix, represented by the orange outlines around senator dots.

plotted between pharmaceuticals/health products—oil & gas—human rights. (that one dot straying out toward human rights is ted kennedy if you were curious)

plotted between lobbyists—securities & investment—environment.

plotted between insurance—oil & gas—non-profit organizations.

go ahead and check it out for yourself. see who you’re senator is beholden to. some of the mixtures struck me as odd. i was also surprised how small certain contributors were in context of the rest, like tobacco for instance. i tried plotting against tobacco, beer & wine, and guns but came up empty. find that hard to believe.