The American Spectator

Washington Prowler

p> SNOOP DOGS br> Democrats on Capitol Hill rail against a Bush Administration that is attempting to pry away privacy rights from the citizenry, but it isn't the Republicans who are paying big bucks to mine information about Americans. It's the Democrats. /p>

In fact, by election day 2004, the Democratic National Committee may have the following information about, well, you: Name, date of birth, marital status, income, number of children and some of their names, whether you own a home, your voting record and party affiliation (if the state you are registered in allows such information to be tracked).

"We're going to know a lot more about millions of people than we did two or three years ago," says a DNC fundraiser. "This has been Terry [McAuliffe]'s big project. We've spent millions to get this kind of database up and running. What we do with it, who knows?"

Some privacy advocates, particularly those who have railed for years about FBI and health care databases that track U.S. citizenry, have been silent on the DNC database front, in part, because the DNC may be willing to sell its database to generally friendly organizations. Such sales might make up some of the cost of putting the lists together.

The GOP certainly collects information about voters, but not to the degree that the DNC is taking its research. "We have people around the country who certainly on a local level know which people to talk to about higher-end donations," says a GOP staffer. "But we aren't about knowing or filing away who makes what, or who owns a home. Anyone who wants to help the Republican cause, at what ever financial level they can afford, is welcome. And their privacy will be respected."

p> CORN DOGS br> Lost in the strategic decisions by retired Gen. Wesley Clark and Sen. Joe Lieberman to bow out of the Iowa Caucus was the very necessary reason for Lieberman: it saves him money he can better spend in New Hampshire and in South Carolina.

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