Republicans Discover the Census
February 11th, 2010 by Steven GardnerA few weeks ago I was handed a mailer titled “2010 Congressional District Census.”
The mailer, with the label “Do Not Destroy, Official Document” on the envelope was actually sent by the Republican Party, complete with a tracking code.
If you read the document before you get to the questions, it’s clear early on that it’s a party thing. If you don’t, your first question is whether you conservative, moderate or liberal Republican or an independent voter who leans Republican or “other.”
Then, question 8 asks, “How much does it concern you that the Democrats have total control of the federal government?”
Nonetheless it has the look and feel (though not quite the smell) of an official government document. The one on my desk is only the first Republican “census.” This story in the Washington Post tells that there is another, and the tactic is being criticized.
I’m curious to see your reaction to this. I roll my eyes when I get stuff like this, mailers intended to look like something else. I have a negative reaction. This is assuming, of course, I bother to open it. But I used to work in marketing, and we paid people to hand-write names and addresses on envelopes, so in an earlier part of my life I guess I was guilty of doing the same thing. I also once worked for a company that sent letters with two tickets to an upcoming seminar. The tickets had a face value of $29, but these lucky people were getting them for free! The company would send out about 30,000 of them in hopes of getting 300 or so people to show up and buy things.
Do you think anyone is tricked by this? Annoyed by this? Does anyone answer a question about “out-of-control spending” by the Democrats and think the government sent it?
Here are PDFs of each page.
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Scripps Interactive Newspapers Group
February 11th, 2010 at 12:09 pm
My reaction is the same as yours, Steve. I roll my eyes, but I get angry when gullible people believe anything if it coincides with their latent prejudices and fears coaxed into the open by groups wanting to use them for their own agenda.
One of the worst lies of some Republicans is about the government wanting to contain health care costs by cutting Medicare benefits. It really is about taking the insurance companies out of the Senior Advantage program set up in 1997 (Part C) that seems to promise more than original Medicare but the ones that profit the most are the insurance companies running that who are subsidized by the government and us taxpayers. Medicare Part D (2002)is similar in that it promised to help with prescriptions, but many who were foolish enough to sign up for that private insurance-run program have seen their premiums hiked so much that they had to drop it.
Do those Republicans tell you that the private insurers got their mitts on a government program and use it for their profit? No, they could care less about the working poor and the middle class, they just want a way for big insurers to make more profits. What they do is scare people by lying about programs that so many elderly people depend on. When I see photos of the tea-baggers (yes, I call them tea-baggers–because some old ladies were wearing tea bags hanging from the brims of their hats) they are 99.99 per-cent elderly and white.
It was recently leaked out that the Republicans, when pushed to reveal their “health care reform” plans, really just want to “wean” people off Medicare and Social Security. They complain about them costing too much, but they sure weren’t averse to wanting to get their mitts in there and privatizing them for profits. Had they privatized Social Security, it would have gone the way of Wall Street, and you would have a tea-party of a different kind, the elderly wanting to lynch some Republicans. Those people paid into those programs and now depend on them.
When Wall Street was bailed out, I think it ended the argument forever that you cannot continue to bail out the programs that many people have come to expect to be entitled to. Government is there to provide a safety net for the people and not for risk-taking speculators.
Emilie
Port Orchard, WA
February 11th, 2010 at 1:02 pm
While I don’t think many people would be tricked by this, it’s still annoying. This mailer is neither an “Official Document” nor a “Census” – it’s a survey and a solicitation for RNC donations. Why not call it what it is and avoid possible confusion and controversy?