UrBEN Legend

Okay, so I went into this assignment trying to find interesting facts about campaign contributions that somehow related to my hometown (Orlando, FL) or my last name (Kaiser). But as it turns out, the information I found was pretty obvious. Using the campaign search engine Political Money Line I learned that Orlando is pretty split on their political views (shock me, shock me...if you’re thinking about the 2000 recount, please don’t get me started) and that quite a few people make campaign contributions with the last name Kaiser (242 to be exact). So for fun I started to randomly look up famous actors and once I reached Ben Affleck I learned something really surprising. Affleck never donated money towards electing John Kerry as president.

Now think back to the 2004 election (I know this is hard, but bear with me). Affleck was basically attached to Kerry’s side. He campaigned for him, talked him up in interviews, and even wore Kerry t-shirts almost every day. So naturally, I expected to find numerous contributions for Kerry from the politically active actor. Instead I saw that Affleck contributed to the presidential campaigns of Dennis Kucinich ($1,000) and General Wesley Clark ($2,000), but not Kerry.

This got me thinking about how some critics claimed Kerry lost the election because of all the publicity he got from big Hollywood players. Whether or not you agree this had a negative impact on his campaign, I’m sure you remember all of the celebrity endorsements. But the truth is a lot of celebrities that supported the presidential candidate didn’t actually donate money to his campaign. Some actually gave money to Kerry’s competition.

This included celebrities such as Matt Damon, Paul Newman, Jane Fonda, Aaron Sorkin, Bradley Whitford, and Martin Sheen.

So while a great deal of Hollywood probably voted for the Massachusetts senator, they didn’t contribute money to his campaign. Those millions came from the general public...and the billion-dollar food company Heinz.