I’m a big “West Wing” fan. In fact, I’m feeling a little under the weather and I’m planning a sitting-in-front-of-the-TV marathon tonight. Right after watching “Michael Moore Hates America,” which I’ve been curious about for a while, I think I’ll cue up some Sorkin time.

Ever wonder about the actual politics of people who portrayed political movers and shakers on the show?

Ron Silver’s for Giuliani (Via PrezVid). He has been quite active, it would appear, in donating to campaigns throughout the last 15 years.

From Newsmeat, which appears to be a pretty good source of campaign contribution information for celebrities:

Martin Sheen: supported Gephardt in the ‘04 presidential primary and Hart in the ‘84 presidential primary. That seems appropriately quixotic for his character, I guess.

Allison Janney: just one donation to Sen. Barbara Boxer’s (D-Calif.) campaign in 2004.

Rob Lowe: donated some money to Mark Shriver’s ‘02 primary campaign in Maryland for the U.S. House. He lost.

John Spencer: Gephardt for president in ‘04 — and Beth Troutman for Congress in N.C. In fact, Sheen donated to Troutman in ‘04, too. What’s the deal? Aha, according to IMDB, she was a crew member on “The West Wing,” and personal assistant to Alex Graves, one of the show’s executive producers. That’s cute.

Bradley Whitford: Biden for President, Franken for Senate, Obama for President.

Richard Schiff: Doesn’t seem to come up in the search.

And there’s plenty more, of course.

Do you care? The first search was kind of fun for me, then I increasingly felt like I was pulling it up for no reason. And then, not for no reason so much as just to be dirty. Very dirty. Politically dirty. Would you be more interested to know the political leanings of those who told you the news?

Would a newsperson donating to a campaign sway your opinion of their ability to deliver the news? If they didn’t donate to a campaign, would you believe they didn’t have opinions? Would the amount they had donated change your opinion? Looking for answers and opinions here.