How about *preventing *it from being manipulated by a Republican Secretary? The idea didn’t arise until after the nomination, remember.
You have been given that suggestion before, btw - it’s, um, odd that you don’t recall. Not quite as odd as your emotionality over something that can’t affect you in the slightest, though.
No problem. It is widely known that minority citizens are suspicious of the Census, suspecting that it is, and has been, manipulated in order to favor a political party. Obama is putting his imprimatur on the thing, in order to assure such citizens that he will personally guarantee the results are valid and truthful.
In that such trust is essential to the workings of a democracy, I find that admirable, more than merely justifiable.
The perfidy of Rove and Co. is an established fact, the perfidy of which you accuse Obama is not. When Obama tries to fuck around with the Justice Dept. in order to provoke indictments to affect elections, do get back to us, won’t you? We’ll be right here.
He probably didn’t. He already had control of it under Commerce and he still has control of it now. He probably viewed moving the census as a minor piece of administrative reorganization. Like when Bush moved the Coast Guard from the Department of Transportation to the Department of Homeland Security.
Could you produce a cite that “The Democrats” “want to use statistical sampling to estimate the population, rather than directly counting them” in 2010? And that they’re actually planning to do something to turn their wish into reality?
You should be aware that the question of sampling in the 2010 Census was for all practical purposes decided on Election Day, 2004. There has been no planning for a sampling operation in 2010 to supplement the traditional count, and it would take a pretty major effort, starting now (13.5 months before Census Day) to bring it into being in time. And the Census Bureau doesn’t have a single dollar allocated to plan it; that money would have to be appropriated by Congress sometime. How’s that FY09 budget coming, anyway?
Oh, and going back to “they’ve complained that the homeless aren’t being counted properly, so they want to use statistical sampling to estimate the population”: JFTR, in 2000 when they DID have sampling, sampling was only done of housing units. Homeless people don’t live in housing units; homeless people were enumerated as part of the group quarters count in 2000. I’m not even sure how the 2000 ‘catch and release’ sampling methodology could be adapted to counting of the homeless: as a group, they’re really not keen on giving their names to enumerators, so without a name, you lack the ‘tag’ that catch-and-release estimation depends on.
Sampling is likely a moot point anyway, until there’s an amendment to get the words “actual enumeration” out of the Constitution.
Sam, just out of curiosity, why do you think Gregg asked for the job in the first place? His stated reasons for backing out were, if you’ll recall: (1) disagreements with financial policies, that he already knew beforehand, and (2) not being able to get control of the Census. So what else do you think motivated him to apply for the job?
Good point Elvis. There is mounting evidence - much from Gregg’s own mouth - that it was the census and his ability to control it that caused his interest in the job in the first place.
I find it very much akin to Claude Raines in CASABLANCA with his feigned shock over gambling that Sam Stone appears to be shocked that the census actually may have some political overtones to it. Imagine:eek::eek:
I haven’t yet heard a solid example of what’s going to be different that can be stamped with “political manipulation”. No doubt because, as of now, there’s really no details about what would be changed. The closest is the difference between sampling versus pure headcounts (assuming they do chose to use sampling) which still doesn’t really smack of interference to me.
In other words, the entire ‘scandal’ so far consists of nothing but vague hand-wringing and cries of “What about Rove??” Which is fine for some, I imagine, but I’ll wait until there’s actually something to get upset about.
Waitaminnit, now. How is the proposed method any less objective than the old one? If it does add to Dem representation, that’s just an instance of reality having a liberal bias.
I usually change the channel or turn off my brain whenever someone brings up the census issue, because it should be a non-issue.
The way it’s done now, and has always been done, is to go door to door and literally count everyone. The ones in my neighborhood last time kept coming to my door (I was actually home once and not travelling) and were very persistant. I used to be in favor of statistics, but it’s true that statistical analysis will have bias and error rates. It’s arguably more efficient (well, cheaper) to do a statistical anaylsis, but it’s always been done with actual counting. This is the most objective way to do it, and to think otherwise means that one has an intellectual challenge of massive proportions or has a very loose grip on reality.
ETA: Oh, and this has been in controversy for what, two hundred years? Seriously, this is nothing new. To change the counting for some other reason is to do so only for political reasons, unfair political reasons.
Certainly it’s always been done with actual counting, but in what sense is that more objective than the statistical sampling methods? Doing an actual count will give you something which is objectively very much like an actual count, but objectively significantly different from the true numbers.
This is the first census that the Dems will be in charge of ,for the last 30 years. The 1990 census missed about 8 million immigrant and urbaners, while it double counted 4 million whites.
The census determines redistricting and re-apportionment. Delay managed to sqeeze 6 congressional seats into the republican column in Texas by a deft use of census data. The census also is used to determine the flow of cash to states.
The census is a political tool and has been for many years. Obama was making a mistake by letting a repub be in charge again. He keeps trying to be inclusive, but the repubs had no such interests when they were in charge.
http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1879667,00.html Heres a relevant article from Time.
I see your point. However, assuming things work out the way things should, i.e. all things being equal, a perfect count will is logically the best objective way to get to true numbers. A statistical sampling already has a bias and an error rate already put into it. If you want to argue that both methods are error prone and that statistical analysis is scientifically more accurate, then I will argue two things:
This is the way it’s always been done and the balance (political/error rate/etc.)has already been struck.
Introducing a new method is the easiest way to abuse the results.
Like I said, this has been going on for the longest time. Gerrymandering should be avoided. This will be a top cause in the break down of government (well, the start of it, anyway).
Bill Clinton, a Democrat, was still President for the entire year of 2000. He did not leave office until Jan. 20 of 2001. Dems were in charge of taking that census, although Republicans took at least some of the information and probably processed it.
Truthfully, I fail to see why this is even an issue. Its a done deal that goes with winning the election. The republicans seem to want to put on blinders and pretend that these things are not part and parcel with them losing. Thats the way the cookie crumbles.
This is a partisan war over demographics. Republicans want to cheat the counts down, and Democrats want to cheat them up. The Pubs want to do a direct count, the Dems want to use statistical sampling. Absolute accuracy is impossible, but the science shows that statistical sampling is more accurate than trying to count directly (which is impossible). There is no question whatsoever that all kinds of people have been undercounted in the past, and that sampling will bring the numbers back up closer to reality.
Basically, this all about apportionment of Congressional districts. More people in urban areas means more Congressional seats for the Democrats. The Repoublicans want to continue, as they have in the past, to deflate those numbers as much as possible. The Dems want to inflate them.
In order to reassure some minority advocates worried that Gregg would not be amenable to updating to 21st Century science, Obama said he would have the Cenus Board make direct reports to the White House (contrary to some reports, he did NOT ever say he would move the board out of Commerce, only that he would have the White House pay closer attention to them).
When Gregg found out he wasn’t going to be able to get the kind of Census which would most help Republicans, he quit.
And winged unicorns are the logically best objective way to get from place to place. But we don’t have those, either.
FTR, the U.S. Census has historically and egregiously undercounted the poor. See here and here. 'Bout time that was corrected.
Incidentally there is a bill currently proposed by Democratic congress woman Carolyn Maloney (and supported by 4 other Democrats) to make the Census Bureau an independent agency.
Here’s a link
http://maloney.house.gov/index.php?option=content&task=view&id=1720&Itemid=61
A quote from the link:
“Maloney’s bill was endorsed in a letter signed by every living former Director of the Census who collectively served seven Presidents from Richard Nixon to George W. Bush.”
So the bill seems to have bipartisan support from past Census Directors. To reduce politicization of the count (or the appearance there of) this seems the right way to go.
One other thing I wanted to highlight. Charles Louis Kincannon (a former director of the Census Bureau who resigned under Bush II) has made specific criticisms of using statistical sampling for the Census. Most of the popular media covering this issue seem to have the same quotes from him. Here’s a sample from usnews.com.
It appears at the larger level that statistical sampling will be more accurate, but that at a more granular level less so. I don’t know what practical effect on government policy a distortion in census data at the bock or neighborhood level will have, but it doesn’t sound benign. On the upside it appears that the 2000 census made progress in correcting the undercount compared with 1990.