Census brings GOP disappointment

We know to quake with fright every 10 years when the census numbers come out. It seems like Republican states always gain a stunningly high number of congressional seats with each decennial reapportionment, and that's a crying shame.

Now the 2010 results are rolling out, and the GOP is having a hard time hiding their chagrin that their net gains aren't as much as they hoped. ("Depressing," lamented one Freeper.) I doubt it's even close to what they gained in 1990 or 2000, when the 2 most inaccurate censuses in the country's history meant that the amount of seats a state gained was almost directly proportional to the state's Republican leanings.

With the right-wing base gone rural, Republican states should have cleaned up this time - since it's the rural areas that have room to grow. What inner city has room for new houses? But Republican states' growth is now proving to be anemic.

The Republican thought police takes comfort in Texas gaining 4 seats. But these will be in the state's most Democratic areas, so it won't help the GOP's congressional power.

The new census figures reinforce several important points. First, they confirm that the Republicans did indeed intentionally rig the census in 1990 and 2000. It's just too much of a coincidence that most solidly Republican states gained seats in those years while most reliably Democratic states lost seats.

Secondly, the new numbers prove that folks don't want to live in fascism-blighted regions even when they have room to grow. People would rather squeeze into a big city than live with the teabaggers' failed policies in the countryside. For years, I've always heard people talk about how they want to move to liberal areas. I've hardly ever heard anybody say they wanted to move to a conservative area.

If folks wanted to be governed based on the Tea Party model, why aren't we seeing a continuation of the trends of the previous 2 censuses? If conservative areas didn't have so much room, they wouldn't have grown at all. Just think of the waterworks we'd get to enjoy then. (Freepers are already accusing the Census Bureau of denying North Carolina an extra seat for being too Republican.)