I have a unique perspective on this issue since I have been in repeat email contact with the authors of the La Times story since the very beginning of Hsu matter.

I can state without equivocation that it is not racially motivated. They were doing exactly the same thing I was.

Rather than troll through the online version of the FEC data base which only allows specific types of queries to the data, we downloaded the entire FEC data base and imported it into spreadsheet and free standing data bases to allow generation of statistics and pattern analysis.

None of this can be done with the online access capability.

Simply what was done is compare donation patterns from prior year averages by zip code or metropolitan statistical areas or however you want to break it down and you are looking for variations from average behavior of the past.

Those searches of the data were totally ethnic neutral. It is not until after you detect an abnormal variation that you then even take a look at who was doing the donations.

That is why for example it is noted in the La Times article that the Chinatown money was picked up as a variation in which in a small area Hillary raked in 380,000 versus Kerry over the entire campaign cycle gathering only 24,000.

Also it is important to note that over 90% of this money was raised at a single fundraiser event. Donations outside the event have been near historic norms and patterns even for the Chinatown area. If you look at the donations outside the event itself not surprisingly you find a high incidence of verifiable person/address existence and job descriptions that would reasonably support the level of donation associated with donation provided. Also the vast majority of those other donations were well below the maximum amounts.

CommentGuy on October 28, 2007 at 8:32 PM