Hi folks. This is Theis Finlev, policy advocate for California Common Cause.

I have spent the last month trolling through campaign disclosure reports for this oh-so special election. Riverting stuff!  Come election day, the various campaigns will have spent over forty bucks per voter "educating" the public. Mmmmmmm, I love my McMocracy!

To help the public and reporters keep track off all the money being thrown around, I created Pay-dar, a user-friendly (hopefully) way of keeping track of who's paying for what. Check it out and let me know if you have suggestions.

If you are having a hard time slogging through the ridiculous amount of money thrown at the propositions or want to know where the $250 million came from that's funding the special election, then put Pay-dar on your Radar

To help voters track the ins and outs of big money contributions to November's initiative campaigns, we created Pay-dar - a useful tool to track the true source of special election contributions.

So What's behind the barrage of proposition campaigning?

• 4 in 10 individuals contributing to Governor Schwarzenegger's California Recovery Team describe their occupations as CEO, President, Executive, Owner, or Chairperson. Their contributions total over half of the money the Recovery Team has raised from individuals.
  
  
• Pharmaceutical companies are spending $80 million to defeat Proposition 79, outspending their opponents 412 to 1.
  
  
• The Small Business Action Committee PAC got 90% of its money from Ameriquest and the CEOs (and their families) of GAP, Wal-Mart, and the Security National Servicing Corporation.
  
  
• The California Teachers Association is the single largest contributor to proposition campaigns, contributing over $50 million to defeat the governor's initiatives.

To find out more go to the website of California Common Cause.

If that doesn't satiate your need for our observations about campaign finance, check out these news stories via KTVU by clicking here and here.