An interesting alternative view of Congress

I go out of my way to avoid overtly political (i.e., "Democrat" vs. "Republican") discussions on this site, but if you read closely enough you should be able to determine that I have no party affiliation. In fact, this post by Barry Ritholtz does a fairly decent job of summarizing my feelings.

In essence, I believe that political party affiliations have become more a red herring than anything else, and that the truly important ties--in terms of actual daily government action--are the corporate interests that finance politicians' campaigns. To the degree that those ties may break along party lines, I see importance in party affiliation, but I think "party" is less important than most voters believe, and that they should therefore focus their attention elsewhere.

To that end, I was particularly drawn to this item from Mother Jones. It at least gives some decent visuals, and an alternative way of viewing things. Whether or not you buy into it is up to you, but it's certainly interesting.

The full article goes into further detail, breaking down donations to individual politicians, if you're interested. Personally, I think the visual representation is the most striking part of the article, which is why I included it here.

[Mother Jones]