HERE'S A WAY TO CHECK CAMPAIGN CONTRIBUTIONS FROM YOUR LOCAL AREA

The Federal Election Committion has made it much easier to research campaign contributions to the various presidential candidates, not to mention much less troublesome than reading through pages of .pdf files. The software used for the interactive maps were used by the New York Times for it's first quarter research package, and it cost the taxpayers much less as the FEC decided to forgo the bells and whistles which made the Times package so fluid.

The software allows you to check the amount of money raised by individual candidates by the ZIP Code area. According to information from the candidates' last quarterly filing, here's how they did in the 338 area, which includes Polk, DeSota, and Highlands counties:

DEMOCRATS: $19,930
Hillary Rodham Clinton: $9,050
John Edwards: $6,600
Barack Obama: $3,280
Bill Richardson: $1,000

REPUBLICANS: $4,550
John McCain: $3,200
Sam Brownback: $600
Mitt Romney: $500
Ron Paul: $250

Now, compare that to what the candidates have collected statewide:

DEMOCRATS: $3,895,359
Hillary Rodham Clinton: $1,887,826
Barack Obama: $1,019,042
John Edwards: $503,120
Bill Richardson: $194,850
Joseph Biden, Jr.: $147,200
Christopher Dodd: $139,196
Dennis Kucinich: $3,250
Ron Gravel: $875

REPUBLICANS: $2,969,550
Mitt Romney: $996,080
John McCain: $993,026
Rudolph Giuliani: $877,700
Ron Paul: $39,915
Sam Brownback: $34,394
Tommy Tancredo: $8,965
Tommy Thompson: $7,600
Duncan Hunter: $6,350
Mike Huckabee: $5,400
John Cox: $120