Information Aesthetics posted these images from Oil Change International‘s datavisualization of donations given to 2008 US Presidential candidates. An artful activist tool, Oil Change International gives users a chance to take action to keep oil and state separate.

In their own words, Oil Change International “campaigns to expose the true costs of oil and facilitate the coming transition towards clean energy,” and “are dedicated to identifying and overcoming political barriers to that transition.”

Information Aesthetics does a nice job explaining:

in the “relationship view”, the more money a politician has accepted from the oil industry, the bigger their picture is on the map. the more money they have accepted from an individual company, the thicker the line will be that connects them. elected officials & companies are positioned by their relationships, those that are close together tend to have similar patterns of giving and receiving. in the “table view”, politicians are ranked by their total dollar amount received, together with the companies that donated them.