Seems like kind of like odd timing to be re-inventing the conservative movement and re-introducing the conservative viewpoint as if it were an alternative. It almost seems as if they feel like they've lost the election already.

My sense is that only the government (local and federal) can legally conduct a "census".

Hopefully they ran this one by their lawyers first.

The Republican Nation Committee has sent out a "Republican Census Document". My mother, a lifelong Democrat, received one this past week.

The letter starts out:
Dear Fellow Republican,
You are among a select group of Republicans who have been chosen to take part in the official 2008 CENSUS OF THE REPUBLICAN PARTY.
Enclosed is your new 2008 GOP CENSUS DOCUMENT

My mother, a lifelong Democrat, just received an official 2008 CENSUS OF THE REPUBLICAN PARTY sent by the RNC.

It says the census was especially prepared and assigned for her as a "representative of all Republicans in your voting district".

The census form has a registration number and voting district code.

Let me know if you want to add to your collection.

A census of really stupid people, given it's second- grade-reading-level pitch. The exaggeration and nonsense reads like a fairy tale to ratchet up fear with no facts. I think I've seen this tactic before... Wealthy people in power raising money from uneducated and/or really ignorant people to perpetuate their hold on wealth and power. The most cynical, unpatriotic approach there is. These people are repulsive. Hopefully it's transparent enough for even the ignorant to ignore.

Here is a link to the complete poll that was sent to my 30-year-Democrat husband, which had someone else's Social Security number on it. A paranoid person might think that they were going to do some voter caging, so, being paranoid, we checked his registration and all is currently well.

The link: http://www.dailykos.com/story/2008/1/19/201936/400/584/432668

Be sure to return them all, with or without comment, to use up all of their money you can on the prepaid postage. Let's help them burn through their money.

What an appalling letter. Badly written and poorly presented. Sadly, though, some witless citizens will be sucked into responding because it appears to be official.

Scary tactics.

Since in my offline existence, I'm a career statistician at the Census Bureau, I'd personally be quite touchy about anything that seemed to have much potential to compromise my agency's credibility.

But I can't say I feel bothered by this one. It just doesn't have the 'feel' of a government document. And by the time you're to the seventh line of the letter - the first real content, as everything else is preliminary - it gets into the 'And make no mistake, if you don't complete this, the evil libruls will come eat your children. With Hollandaise' type crap.

Nobody with an IQ above room temperature is gonna be fooled by this one. But if it nags at you anyway, contact the Commerce Departement's Office of General Counsel, and ask them who handles Census Bureau-related legal matters.

I also got one of the official RNC census documents today, and I'm also a registered Democrat. I answered their multiple choice questions as a good progressive might respond and am sending it back in their prepaid envelope sans a contribution.

OTOH sent a contribution to Dennis Kucinich today for his congressional battle...Kucinich speaks for progressives and we should all be supporting him in his hour/day/week/month of need that is now upon him. (note to contribute to his congressional race, NOT the presidential race...which is now kaput)

You hope they ran it by their lawyers first?

what planet have you been living on. Look...down in SC it is against the law to make robo calls. The Huckster went roaring in their with a big robocall operation and essentially told the state's AG...go ahead and sue us.

This same group had already done the same thing in Indiana....

Even if they get sued, it will never get to trial before the next election. Look how long that damned get out the vote phone bank jamming case took when the Republicans spent millions to defend ONE guy and delay and delay and delay any findings.

These guys never cared about the law and they care even less so now. They are desperately trying to bamboozle another election cycle, whether it is caging, faulty electronic voting machines, demanding voter IDs where none are needed. Stand by folks it is going to be a giant s...t storm between here and November.

It looked to be pretty clearly stated as being from a political outfit to me, and I didn't see any obvious signs of misleading language.

What I thought was interesting, though, was their adding into the list of "left wing" boogeymen "trial lawyers". WTF?

"Your 2008 Citizens Census is being conducted by Freedom's Watch as a first step in taking back our nation...."

First step? Take back the nation? Who would they have us believe has been in charge for the past 7 years?

same dog whistle racism, another day. Hoping to be the "inclusive" "exclusive" "conservative" (oh what a hoot!) gnostic cult provider, they can appeal to those who don't have the desire or intellect to form an opinion on there own and need instructions mailed to them.

I went through this with some extended family members back prior to '04', when out of a sense of "public duty", this nice instructor from a major educational institution, (read: established overnight junior college in Texas), send out a chain letter to all the "faithful" in Missouri and southern Illinois. In it were the Rove and Swiftboaters talking points and issues, (read: pack of contemptuous lies), about everything from undeserved medals to anti-patriotism heretofore unknown to mankind from A to Z. Not a mention of disappeared Texas National Guard paycheck stubs for credit hours paid for non-compliance of duty. Not a mention of horrendous drug and alcohol use by a candidate who'd decided to duck out and "disappear" AWOL when it looked like mandatory drug tests were going to be insisted on to continue the over One Million Dollar flight training and education being given to a recruit who stepped in front of 500 other eligible candidates, with a mere phone call from the right Texas politician. Seems the Confidential Census Consensus, them being ...merely concerned with providing advice and guidance to those who might be less than informed, were not concerned about the presumptive misdeeds of their "chosen" candidate and it didn't matter now anyway because "he'd" found the "light" that which is JESUS! and was willing to not only bring this light forward but share and serve the heavenly information that came from it until Jesus could revisit and gather his lambs.
Sound sick and diluted? Sound Stepford to the extreme? I shit you not, this was circulated by people who were sold parishioner lists through Assembly Of God administrators. Someone tell me again about the separation of church (yes even those that behave more like cults).

If I get one of these, I'm gonna tape a brick (or something heavier if I can find it) to the postage paid envelope & send 'er right back in. Pre paid postage costs about double the first class rate, or at least it did in the 80s when I was a disgruntled Letter Carrier.

One word -- laundering. Whatever the actual response to this mailing, Freedom's Watch can claim it generated "tremendous" response, as they are already. True or not -- and I'm skeptical, since the mailing reads like satire -- this then allows them to claim huge membership (to appear as credible as MoveOn). And under cover of many small contributor-members, the few zillionaire-funders can give even more, resting assured that the grassroots bamboozle diffuses their culpability in the what's to come from Freedom's Watch.

It would be interesting to track back a list of small contribs generated by this mailing to see if those people actually joined and gave. If that were possible, I bet we'd find they didn't.

I got one. Replied as a progressive and have it waiting to be mailed on my kitchen counter.

Now that I have read the comments, I am going to steam it open, take out my ID information, and fill it with as much heavy stuff as I can, then mail it.

On page 6, the membership statement:

"1. Did you fill out this 2008 CITIZENS CENSUS to the best of your ability and will you keep the contents of this document confidential?"

The first rule of Freedom's Watch is...
do not talk about Freedom's Watch?

Filled out form. Told them $500 contribution was enclosed. Wonder if they will spend any time or money looking for it?

These people will never quit. The collapse of the Republcan Party is fun to watch, I'm sure Karl Rove and his henchmen are pulling their non-existant hair out at the fact people aren't buying their brand of bullshit anymore. The Rovian tactics didn't work very well in 2006 and It won't in 2008 either. Hence the desperation. Good.

One would hope the Census Bureau would not have a grammatical error in the title of their census.

They're dreamers anyway. The conclusion one would have to make off the first question would be "vote democrat" since it is the dems who have been pushing to properly outfit the troops with blast proof vehicles and better flak jackets. The Pollyanna republicans in charge of this war never dreamed they would need to buy so much stuff and keep resisting doing so. They'd rather dump the money that could be buying equipment, in cash, on Iraq's corrupt politicians with no accounting to keep it out of the hands of the insurgents. The "conservatives" we have in charge now keep dreaming that the war will turn the corner and they won't have to pony up to outfit the troops. News flash, the road and the buildings surrounding it have been leveled, so there is no longer a corner to turn.

If FW were being honest instead of dreamers, the question would read: "Should we give Halliburton a free pass to falsely charge the government for undelivered services to our soldiers and pretend the need for better equipment doesn't exist?"

The last question on the first page is equally naive as well as misleading. We HAVE a balanced budget amendment in force. And what did it do? Nothing. It was a stupid conservative-style, slap-on-the-wrist non-solution to a systemic problem with congress. The "conservatives" are the ones that wanted it, and like all programs they insist on, useless in its implementation.

Sheesh. "Conservatives" are like children. Willfully naive until they throw a temper tantrum.

"When I asked Freedom's Watch spokesman Jake Suski whether the mailing was misleading, he strongly disagreed."

Of course it is supposed to be misleading. And, if it is sophisticated enough, it is defensible and has that "deniability" that we have all come to know and love. If it had the suggestion of government sponsorship to someone as sophisticated as Paul Kiel, how do you think it plays to middle America? How many extra millions will that sort of deceit garner for "Freedom's Watch?

I wanna fill one of those out, just so I can mark "Undecided" next to whether or not we should give our troops everything they need to fight our enemies.

Did anybody notice the "Do not write in this box" box on the census? Classic.