It pays to have powerful friends.
That's the theme of a recent project by The Center for Public Integrity, a nonprofit investigative news organization. The project is an interactive map that shows how U.S. President Barack Obama has nominated many campaign fundraisers and political allies to desirable ambassadorships.
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Michael Beckel and Chris Zubak-Skees began working on the project in July. They launched the first version of the map in September, but it remains a work in progress, as many of the nominees have not yet been confirmed by the Senate.
"There is a casual relationship between big-dollar fundraising and some of the most-sought-after positions in the diplomatic corps," the project's creators told Mashable in an email. "This project was conceived to highlight the fact that scores of plum ambassadorship postings are going, not to career diplomats, but to well-connected political fundraisers. "
The project refers to "bundlers," or people who organize fundraising events for candidates. Current law limits the contribution any one individual can make to a candidate to $2,600. Bundlers work to gather donations from many individuals for a given candidate.
So far, Obama has nominated 23 of his prominent bundlers to ambassadorships, and the Senate has approved eight of them. He has also nominated 17 people who are considered political allies.
In comparison, he nominated 33 career diplomats, mostly for countries in Africa, South America, the Middle East and Southeast Asia.
"This practice has been going on for generations, but this year, President Obama has been appointing political allies to ambassadorships at an exceptionally high rate," Beckel and Zubak-Skees said.
It is not mandatory for candidates to disclose the identity of their fundraisers, and the practice of voluntarily doing so is somewhat recent, going back about a decade.
For more information, check out The Center for Public Integrity's graphic, embedded below.
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Stephen Ritchie