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Fun With Fundrace: Park Slope for Obama, ‘Burg for Hillary, Batali for John Edwards, and More

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Photos: Getty Images


We told you yesterday about Fundrace 2008, the fun new feature on the Huffington Post that lets you track people’s political contributions by name or by neighborhood. What we didn’t expect was that the thing would prove terribly addictive. Here’s a sampling of what we found after a full day of playing with it:

• Completely random celeb-name search reveals Mario Batali’s $1,000 contribution to John Edwards (as well as the chef’s home address), Tommy Hilfiger’s $2,300 donation to Barack Obama, and the supposedly apolitical Sandy Weill’s $4,600 gift to Hillary Clinton.

• Obama holds a narrow lead in Park Slope, followed very closely by John Edwards.
• Hillary’s got the hipster vote locked up — or is it the orthodox-Jew vote? Either way, Williamsburg is Hill country.
• It’s fun to see private-equity guys hedging: Witness one Louis Mintz of J.F. Lehman & Co. write a $2,300 check to Obama and a $2,100 one to McCain.
• Finally, Fundrace is the new MySpace — sort of. It turns itself into a quasi-social-network site by letting you find out what your politically active neighbors do for a living, not just how they cast their vote. Simply by entering our own Zip Code, for example, we found a lobbyist, a film producer, and a top Random House editor all living just a few Park Slope brownstones away. Even better, some addresses have a Google StreetView link so you can see the actual house — hel-lo neighbor! We’ll be shoving that manuscript under your door any day now.

Fundrace 2008 [HuffPo]
Earlier: HuffPost Launches Fundrace, Reveals Campaign Secrets

Fun With Fundrace: Park Slope for Obama, ‘Burg for Hillary, Batali for John Edwards, and More