It appears politics is all about money these days, with the leading presidential candidates on track to break fund-raising records. So it is appropriate to visit some of the Web sites that attempt to keep tabs on the largesse.

It all begins with the site of the Federal Election Commission, the agency charged with enforcing the Federal Election Campaign Act, at www.fec.gov. The site has improved so dramatically since the last election cycle one might have a hard time believing it's run by the government.

Its sheer volume of data, from scanned-in financial disclosure statements to electronic filings of individual donations, makes the site a political wonk's Web wonderland.

Recent changes to the databases allow for more specific search and retrieval options, whereas previously the site required much more slogging through obscure documentation. Donations by individuals and PACs can be tracked by just about anything from party affiliation to donor ZIP code.

The site also contains downloadable databases with information on candidates, parties and political action committees, with which others can build their own fun Web sites for exploring the data. Such second-tier sites were more essential before the SEC improved its own offerings, but they remain useful and even entertaining.

One of the more engaging ones is Political Money Line at www.fecinfo.com, wherein one can search for donors by any number of criteria. For example, one can drop in a ZIP code for Crawford, Texas 76638, and get the names and addresses of the two people who donated to the Kerry campaign. Or one can put in a last name, say Kleske, and note not one person by that name has ever given a dime to anybody.

Another good site is FundRace 2004 at www.fundrace.org, through which one can track donations geographically. The site's Money Maps page allows the user to get a visual of the United States in terms of where parties are getting the most money. So, for example, San Francisco's region is denoted by a pie chart that is three-quarters blue for Democrat donations, while Houston's is the exact opposite.

The Center for Responsive Politics' Open Secrets page at www.opensecrets.org crunches the numbers very well, offering big-picture views of campaign war chests with tables and charts.

Most states have their own Web sites for posting and searching political donations. In California the Secretary of State's Automated Lobbying and Campaign Contribution & Expenditure Search System is at http://cal-access.ss.ca.gov, and for other states the Institute on Money in State Politics' page at www.followthemoney.org is a good place to start.

The Soft Money Laundromat at www.commoncause.org/laundromat looks at the game from a different perspective. By tracking soft money contributions of $1,000 or more given to Democratic and Republican national party committees and then cross-referencing the data, the site allows for searches by industry. The Laundromat hasn't caught up to the current election cycle yet but remains a good reference tool for historical giving.

Since taxes play an important role in the political giving game, the Internal Revenue Service has set up a page at www.irs.gov/charities/political/index.html that allows one to delve into Political Organization Filing and Disclosure Statements. While the site is functional and some interesting forms can be found, it is not as user-friendly as one would hope. But, given that it is run by the IRS, one dare not complain.

Andrew Kleske is online editor for the North County Times. E-mail him at kleske@nctimes.com .