Nickels and dimes

The FEC, charged with administering and enforcing federal campaign finance laws, has a slew of reports from all the candidates published on their website. I've spent a happy couple of hours alternately cleaning the bathroom and surfing the various disbursement categories, which is how I found out who shops at WalMart, among other fascinating tidbits.

Among the reports that you can find is "Disbursements By Purpose" and of the gazillion or so purposes for which money can be spent is the little catch-all category "No Purpose Was Supplied".

Campaign finance reform has long been one of my pet peeves, and I was thrilled when John Edwards decided to go with public financing. As a taxpayer and supplier of these funds, I'm happy to see that his campaign appears to be accounting for every single penny they've spent [reports are available through Sept 2007].

Unlike some others. Granted five figures is insignificant when you're spending millions, but still...