Instapundit links us to a Chicken Little prediction for Conservatives concerning the Census:
Republicans will lose many seats in Congress due to right-wing paranoia about the census and refusal to fill out census forms, gloats the liberal web site Daily Kos.
The number of Congressional districts a state gets is based on how many of its citizens return completed census forms. Because voters in conservative states are completing and returning census forms at lower rates than voters in liberal states, conservative states will lose many seats in the House of Representatives that they would otherwise gain due to increases in their population.
But wait! What about sampling????
After all, the Left has been telling us for a while now that "It's possible to use statistical modeling and sampling methods to supplement the census in order to arrive at estimated counts of various demographic groups."
For example, from a WSJ article on Census sampling last spring:
The sampling debate ignited in the early 1990s after data showed the 1990 census missed more than five million people, including 4.9% of Hispanics and 4.6% of blacks, according to the bipartisan Census Monitoring Board. Using sampling would likely add to the population count in traditionally Democratic areas -- thus benefiting House Democrats in seat allocations.
So...if a Census can be adjusted upwards because it "missed" up to 5% of certain population blocks because those liberal blocks were "completing and returning census forms at lower rates", why can't we have upward adjustments when conservatives blocks complete and return census forms at lower rates? That would be only fair.
Oh, wait...I forgot 'fair' is a one-way street.
What with ACORN on the case, when I read the Instapundit lede "Census Worker Accused Of Inappropriate Questions", I wasn't envisioning questions of a sexually suggestive nature.
I was expecting something more along the lines of "Do you own any guns?"; "If so, where are your guns, and can I go there and count them?"
-or-
"Who did you vote for in the last election?"
Some questions I am in favor of, which would not doubt be deemed "inappropriate" by those who are running the Census out fo the West Wing:
"Are you an American citizen?" and "If not, are you here legally?"
Hey, I can dream can't I?
OK, I am not much of a conspiracy theorist myself, but I have this theory running through my head that I cannot shake....
Was Judd Gregg selected for Commerce simply as a covering action to allow the Obama Administration to move administration of the 2010 Census into the White House, and then hand it over to friends like ACORN?
Food for thought:
- Feb 3: Judd Gregg introduced as nominee for Commerce Secretary
- Feb 3/4: Black & Latino groups "express concern" over his ability to conduct "a thorough and fair counting of all Americans" and "most accurate possible count of the nation’s population"
- Feb 5: Obama Administration moves administration of the 2010 Census out of Commerce, and into the White House.
- Feb?: President Obama signs a "Stimulus" bill which will most likely include $4.2 billion for a "Community Development Fund" to conduct "neighborhood stabilization activities", and $1 billion for the 2010 Census
Now what I ask you is the best way to start off a 'neighborhood stabilization'? Why by determining a baseline, of course. And what better way to accomplish that than with the 2010 Census!
Flush with $4.2 billion, groups like ACORN could do that with no problem, right? Just hire the millions of unemployed (since the stimulus will not have created other new jobs for them) and conduct the Census.
Removing tongue from cheek, I find the sequence of events above awfully convenient. There is no real logical reason for a Democratic President to hold onto a Republican nominee in the face of stiff opposition from his base...unless he had something to gain from it.
Either the Obama administration's vetting of Gregg failed to notice (a real possibility, as already demonstrated) the fact that he tried to eliminate the Commerce Department, and has been a target of Dem constituencies concerning the conduct of the last Census...or they knew all about these weaknesses (a greater possibility due to Dem opposition research) and worked in concert with those aforementioned constituencies to manufacture a "concern" that would give them the political cover to move the Census to the White House to be run by god-knows-who....
But then again I could just be paranoid....
