Choose The Blue

Choose The Blue - support companies that support Blue (Democratic) politics.

From Altercation:
December 8, 2004 | 11:09 AM ET
http://msnbc.msn.com/id/3449870/
Name: Barry L. Ritholtz
Hometown: The Big Picture
Hey Doc,

Politics & Shopping
Are you donating your money to a party that holds the opposite of your political views?

advertisementYou may be doing so, albeit indirectly. Every time you spend money somewhere, some of it (a few cents, anyway) ends up as a political donation.  While most companies play both sides of the aisle, some seem to be strictly Red or Blue outfits, donating money to just one side.
It used to be exceedingly difficult to determine who was giving what.  Thanks to recent disclosure legislation -- and a slew of webtools -- it's now quite easy to determine where your shopping dollars are going.

Check out:


http://www.choosetheblue.com/main.php

http://www.opensecrets.org/orgs/list.asp?order=A

http://www.publicintegrity.org/default.aspx

http://www.opensecrets.org/industries/index.asp

http://www.fecinfo.com/

Special mention should go to Choose The Blue for their incredibly easy to use page.  Choose a shopping category, and their crossed reference menu shows you where your money is going.
For example, GM splits their donations 60/40 GOP/Dem; Ford is 71/29. Toyota was the only Blue manufacturer at 74%.  Progressive Insurance was 91% Blue (no surprise there), while State Farm was 81% Red.

Tech firms were surprisingly Blue (Sun, Cisco, HP and IBM), with Siebel, Intuit and Activision the Red exceptions.

Terrific guide if you want to know where your dollars are going this holiday...

(Worth noting that Target is 72% Red, Wal-Mart is 81% Red, while the cooperative Costco is 91% Blue, by the way.)

Katha Pollitt adds:

In 2004, Amazon.com gave 61% of its political donations to Republicans!  It seems strange to me that a bookseller should support the party of fundamentalists, creationists, book banners and privacy-violators, but that is unfortunately the case.  Click here for details.

You can send Amazon a protest e mail by going here.

Good online alternatives to Amazon are Barnes & Noble, which is on the "good list" of blue companies at ProjectBlueChristmas.com and Powell's.  And don't forget your local independent bookstore!  If they don't have the book you want in stock, they may be able to order it.