"... a hard core liberal couple in the upper northeast US"
Horrors! Not the Northeast!
Actually, snopes is run by 2 college professors that live in the LA area. One is a Canadian citizen, one is a registered independent. Neither is politically active. The site is paid for by advertising revenue - no contributions, political or otherwise, are accepted.
You can find out a bit more about them here:
http://www.snopes.com/info/aboutus.asp