Does helping folding@home make that portion of your power bill tax deductible? Otherwise.. who cares? Donate to a non-profit science foundation.
You are also kind of donating the hardware, which is a much bigger cost than the power. $10 worth of electricity will do more of these calcs than a $10 donation would enable.
McCain stayed within public financing limits. Obama exceeded them.
Not quite true. McCain and Obama both said, during the primaries before either was nominated (or the front-runner), that they would limit themselves to public financing, $85 million each, if their opponent did as well. When McCain sewed up the nomination, he pressed Obama, who had begun his inch towards the nomination. His campaign had also become a cash cow. Obama reneged. So, McCain declined the public limits, too.
MSNBC story from Feb. about this.
End result, instead of $170 million spent between the two, it was more like $1000 million ($630 million for Obama, $360 for McCain).
Source for the spending totals, they were tough to find.
Kleeneness is next to Godelness.