The Census Project Blog

by Terri Ann Lowenthal

manipulate —
1. to adapt or change (accounts, figures, etc.) to suit one’s purpose or advantage
2. to manage or influence skillfully, esp. in an unfair manner: to manipulate people’s feelings
(Source: dictionary.com; italics in original)

The 2010 Winter Olympics begin this week, which is fitting for our purposes because the 2010 decennial census will require an Olympian effort. It’s also fitting because the census games have already begun. The big event? Mud throwing, as in, aim at the wall and see what sticks. (Hmmm, sounds more like a summer than winter sport, but maybe professional mud throwers have to be slick, like an ice rink or luge run.)

But back to the census, which in fact already started with door-to-door enumeration well north of the Olympic host city of Vancouver, Canada. The vast majority of American households will receive their census forms next month, and then the real push begins to convince the skeptical, the fearful, the too-busy, and the unaware to answer ten questions and mail back the form.

The nation’s linguistic and cultural diversity makes the task daunting; the Census Bureau can’t overcome the significant barriers to a full count on its own. It takes a village (to borrow a well-worn phrase), with state and local officials, civic, faith, and business leaders, and community organizations all working to build bridges between the people they serve and Uncle Sam.

Except … if you’re a Democratic public official or a group advocating for the poor or people of color, you’d better watch your back. Because conservative opinion leaders are throwing mud already, accusing anyone remotely connected to the Democratic party of trying to “manipulate” the census results. Last week, Townhall.com columnist Joel Mowbray suggested that Ohio Treasurer Ken Boyce, who heads the state’s Complete Count Committee, would likely find a way to artificially inflate the count in “Democratic strongholds” with help from “cutthroat Obama advisers.”

The basis for the charge?  Umm, none.  Mowbray dreams up a scenario in which his obvious political nemesis would sprinkle liberal-leaning neighborhoods with Be Counted forms that could be used to ramp up the count.  The success of this supposed scheme assumes that the Census Bureau doesn’t have strict protocols in place for adding people on Be Counted forms to the census (it does), as well as statistical programs designed to catch unusual patterns in the count (it’s happened before, but never to the advantage of hard-to-count areas, trust me).  But we digress, because who needs facts when the only point is to throw the long bomb and whip the crowd into a frenzy.

Speaking of fourth and long, the Super Bowl provided another opportunity for conservatives to take cheap shots at the Census Bureau, presumably with the goal of manipulating public opinion about the decennial count. Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) chastised the agency for wasting taxpayer dollars on an advertisement during the big game. I think the gentleman from Arizona cut Investment 101. Let’s see: We spend $2.5 million to reach the largest ever television audience, to help us save $90 million for each one percent of households that census takers don’t have to chase down for their responses. Sounds like a bargain to me (but then, I was a social sciences major).

Citizens Against Government Waste called the Super Bowl ads “a colossal waste of money,” saying the promotion amounted to a “glorified public service announcement” (FoxNews.com, 2/3/10). Problem is, the Census Bureau can’t seem to convince elected officials like Sen. McCain to give it free advertising by posting census information on their Web sites.

It’s clear that the census is little more than political sport to some on the right. But their campaign to suppress the count in communities that tend to elect Democrats is on the verge of backfiring. As The Guardian reported on January 29, “Tea Party” movement leaders are answering the call of Glenn Beck and Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) by promoting a boycott of the census. The Guardian quoted a former speechwriter for President George H.W. Bush, Michael Johns, as saying that conservatives have “legitimate concerns about the integrity of the process.” Hmm, wonder where they got that idea?

But even if the tea partyers are just fed up with all things government, their potential willingness to duck the census spells trouble for those who heretofore thought their anti-census rhetoric might suppress the count only in communities they don’t represent. If response rates start sputtering in traditionally easier-to-count White, middle-income suburban strongholds, conservatives might find that it’s too late for damage control, while the Census Bureau’s merry band of partners carry on their uplifting, empowering message that census participation is beneficial, easy, safe, and – yes – required by law. In the Olympic spirit, victory goes not to those who seek an advantage by accusing their opponents of cheating, but to those who work the hardest to win.