Former CNETers Launch Political Base

Posted on October 25, 2007

TechCrunch reports that former CNET co-founder Shelby Bonnie and four other former CNETers (Mike Tatum, Ethan Lance, Dave Snider and Andy McCurdy) have launched a political website called Political Base. Political Base relies on a combination of blogs, wikis and database tools.

Shelby Bonnie left the company he co-founded with Halsey Minor, CNET, just about one year ago. This morning he launches his next startup, PoliticalBase.
The site, which focuses on local, state and national elections and other political matters, is timed perfectly to take advantage of the 2008 presidential elections and the estimated $4.5 billion that will be spent on advertising to promote candidates and issues.
PoliticalBase is a structured Wiki that encourages research and debate. Users can edit most of the text but can't change the underlying database structure. That allows the site to slice and dice data for comparison purposes (something that can't be done with the free-for-all Wikipedia) but still gives the site's community the ability to create and edit content.
The site is broken down into interconnected categories, including money, people, issues, elections, etc. Clicking on, say Rudy Giuliani shows information on that presidential candidate, including the amount of money raised to date, his religion and party affiliation and biographical information. At the bottom of the page his position on key issues is also shown (for fun, register for the site and click that you do not support him - see how his picture changes).

CrunchBase's profile for Political Base notes that the website was launched "strategically before the 2008 elections to take advantage of the $4.5 billion election advertising market."

The Money Track feature on the Political Base shows political campaign contributions using data from the Federal Election Commission. The issues section lets you see where the candidates stand on the issues. You can even build your own customized grid of politicians and then match them up on specific issues.

As of this writing they didn't have any data about Keith Sprankle but he is a relatively unknown GOP candidate - although he does have a website and a Twitter. However, they do have a page on Steven Colbert who recently announced a plan to run as both a Republican and Democratic presidential candidate in South Carolina.