Phones App Shows Political Leanings By Location

An anonymous reader writes "This phone-enabled, java-app, Red | Blue, allows the user to identify the political leanings of their current location. "By taking your current location, and finding the nearest individual donors of campaign funds from the publicly available data from the Federal Elections Commission, red | blue is able to provide you an accurate reading of the political leanings of your surroundings -- red for Republican or blue for Democrat.""

Comments

I wonder what it was designed for

[Kanpai]

You have to wonder what exactly people have in mind when they make these things - though this is a cool little app.

Now i can do a quick check to find out whether it's safe for me to make loudmouthed comments about abortion and gay marriage in a public place, or where i should start handing out pins. It's certainly cheaper then getting run out of town or punched in the face.

Re:I wonder what it was designed for

[flyingsquid]

You have to wonder what exactly people have in mind when they make these things

Isn't it obvious? It's so you can find the location of the nearest red base, run in, steal their flag, and then take it back to the blue base.

New technology

[BaltikaTroika]

It's like the old days when you could tell GI Joe apart from Cobra by the colour of their lasers.

BaltikaTroika

Find donors here

[kajoob]

Here is a cool little search that let's you find who in your area (or wherever you want to search) donated how much to whom.

Re:Find donors here

[bmetzler]

how was I to know that my personal info would end up in a publicly searchable database? That's nobody's business but me, the candidate, and the FEC. Seriously - how is this public

Keep this in mind the nest time you think that the Freedom of Information Act is a good thing. It comes back to bite you, doesn't it?

Yes, it's always nice to be able to find dirt of the "bad guys." But when it is your personal information that is involved, Whew! Now it is another story.

-Brent

Simple Explanation

[ObligatoryUserName]

>> Am I the only one who's wondering why it's only available via cell phone?

According to the site, this app is an extension of the fundrace.org website, which does let you input a zip code. The cellphone app just takes your current GPS coordinates and checks it against the same database. They aren't trying to sell the software, it seems that they thought it was a moderatly cool idea for a cellphone app and ran with it. Kudos to the devs.

Phones Do Show Political Leanings By Location

[craXORjack]

If your cell phone is sitting on the dash of your two and a half ton SUV and you measure your fuel consumption in units of gallons/mile, you are proabably a republican.

If your cell phone is in your jacket pocket and you are pretending it is a gun while you hold up a liquer store because you lost your factory job, you are proably a democrat.

If you don't have a cell phone because you don't want to feed a huge greedy corporate oligopoly you are a Nader supporter.

If your cell phone is inserted in your boyfriends ass, you are either a Barney Frank supporter, a log cabin republican, or possibly just a seriously disturbed individual.

Yet another locator tool

[xlv]

At http://www.fundrace.org/neighbors.php, you can enter your address and see the contributors in your neighborhood...

Re:WTF?

[Minna Kirai]

Shouldn't that be the other way around?

It was only in 2000 that the USA got colors attached to each party. It happened during the televised results of the Presidential election (and the several day's worth of televised argueing about the outcome)

All 5 major TV stations showed a map of which states were won by whom. Naturally, they did it in the 3 colors of the USA flag, and naturally white (blank) was used for undecided. At that time, 4/5 stations choose red for Republican. In the arguments that followed, "going red" became a shorthand for voting Republican (or at least declaring that way).

Why did they happen to choose red=Republican? Maybe for alliteration (both start with R). Maybe because red reminds us of war, and Republicans are more pro-war? Maybe because blue is the color of depression, and Democrats are more pessimistic? Some of all those things, probably.

Political Leaning != Total Value of Donations

[stomv]

The two phrases simply don't mean the same thing. Sure, it might be an indicator... but you know what is an even bigger indicator? Finding out how that particular voting precinct leaned in aggregate on the most recent presidential, senate, and house voting.

Financial donations to political parties are a subset of political donations (PACs, volunteer time, etc). However, since its votes that count, and voting information is public, why not just use that?

Or, why not use an accurate title to the thread?

Re:WTF?

[Krow10]

In Europe, red = left, blue = right. In the US, the other way round.

On the other hand, you could argue US Democrats belong to the center-right by EU standards...

You could extend this and point out that the US Republicans have gone so far right that they've rolled the meter.

Cheers,
Craig