The importance of Judd Gregg
For starters, it’s integrity.
How many Americans even knew who he was before President Obama tapped him to head the Commerce Department? It’s like Sarah Palin before her emergence, and in quite another way, Rod Blagojevich. Not household names half a year ago.
Let’s look at Judd Gregg, the highly regarded senator from New Hampshire. His appointment was considered very clever and/or shrewd by the Obama administration because it would accomplish a couple of things: Add a Republican to the Cabinet for a bit more of a bi-partisan appearance, and put his senate seat up for grabs in the next mid-term election. Gregg in that seat would have been re-elected, the prevailing wisdom had it, but Democrats had a shot with whoever replaced Gregg as a temporary seatholder.
That’s all changed with Gregg’s stunning announcement yesterday that he had to step down because of irreconcilable differences with some of Obama’s policies. He said he first accepted the position believing he could “bring some views and ideas” that would help the administration govern in these difficult times.
However, it has become apparent during this process that this will not work for me as I have found that on issues such as the stimulus package and the Census there are irresolvable conflicts for me. Prior to accepting this post, we had discussed these and other potential differences, but unfortunately we did not adequately focus on these concerns. We are functioning from a different set of views on many critical items of policy.
Gregg’s second thoughts give us an opportunity to focus on just what’s going on with both the stimulus package and plans to change management of the Census, both being planned behind closed doors.
What Judd Gregg showed today is that he’s not willing to swap his integrity for a place in the Cabinet. When the administration insisted on gutting Commerce Department supervision of the Census and putting it under direct White House political control, it stung Gregg. And when the administration set aside its own principles of “temporary, targeted and timely” stimulus measures to embrace a big spending measure full of programs that Gregg has opposed since coming to Congress, New Hampshire’s senior senator realized that he was window dressing and that the administration had a greater interest in grabbing his Senate seat in 2010 than in listening to his counsel today.
Did many Americans know about that plan to put the Census under Rahm Emanuel’s supervision? That’s a big and very consequential move.
Under our Constitution, we must conduct an “actual Enumeration†every ten years “in such Manner as [Congress] shall by Law direct.†Congress placed responsibility for conducting the enumeration in the Bureau of the Census in the Commerce Department.
Politicizing the science of the Census, however, would aid Democratic efforts to consolidate political control of the country. A desire to increase political control is the legitimate objective of any party in power, of course, but Democrats seem much more intent on using questionable and illegitimate means to do so…
According to Bruce Chapman, a former Census director, if politicians control the Census, you may well get an order to adjust the Census count with “samples†and “modeling†that override the scientific consensus of the statisticians at the Bureau. Another career professional at the Census Bureau told the Wall Street Journal’s John Fund that the only reason for such high-level White House involvement was politics, not science.
After all the promises of ‘no more politics as usual’, we’re seeing nothing but. And not so much of the promised transparency, as this stimulus plan gets re-written up to 1,000 pages, not released to Congress until about 1 am, and only posted online in pdf form making it nearly impossible to search for key components of the bill. And pressure is building for a vote on it by end of day today.
Back in his senate seat, Judd Gregg will vote on it, and likely against it, as Republicans see it as too much too fast for too many earmarks and too much pork. But Gregg’s voice, in particular, will be important when he speaks out on it.
When he hits the stimulus, or any other administration economic proposal, what is the Obama camp going to say? That he’s an ignorant, ideological maniac? They were ready to put him in charge of the Commerce Department (but not, apparently, the Census Bureau).
He remains a man of integrity, and has emerged as a leader at a time when there are so few.
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Judd Greg, this man of integrity also praised Obama for reaching across the isles. He also said that he respected him. The fact remains that Mr. Greg reached out to the Obama administration and put his name into nomination, and it must be believed that, if he asked to be considered, he understood the consequences, that he would have the opportunity to voice disagreement with policy, but ultimately the policy is that of one person, and he must support it. I believe Greg’s ultimate goal was the census job. My guess is that our man of integrity was willing to sacrifice all his views on the census alter. But once he found he was “un-censed,” he was incensed. Looking beyond the story I think Mr. Greg was offering Obama an opportunity to have a conservative Republican in his cabinet in exchange for ending this “silly notion” of changing the enumeration of the census. The Obama administration was happy to have him, but not at any price. Greg had a price. It reminds us of Ronald Reagan. The Obama administration’s attitude was “trust but verify.” Once the reason for Mr. Greg’s “being” in the cabinet was removed, Mr. Greg ceased to “be.” So much the better for all sides to understand each other quickly. The incident shows this administration’s attitude of Kumbaya pragmatism. Mr. Greg was a wolf in sheep’s clothing and would never be part of the cabinet. The administration found it out quickly with a tact that was almost like Solomon.
By the way, our government has never shyed from technology. We must remember that accuracy is in the result and not the process. In 1890 the Hollerith machine, an early computer, was used to calculate the census. It was a punch card reader much like the voting machne tabulators that caused problems for Florida in the 2000 election (Florida using 19th Century technology in a 21st Century world). In 1890, the punch cards were wood not paper, though, and cut the census calculation time in half. Hollerith went on to start what became IBM. Even in the 19th Century, the US was looking to the 20th Century to solve it’s problems. Now in the 21st Century we can forecast elections with pinpoint accuracy with only a 1200 person sample. Sampling has become a science based on probability which is not just a good idea…. but a law!
Charles Babbage (1791-1871) the inventor of the computer once remarked, “On two occasions I have been asked,’Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?’… I am not able rightly to apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question.”
With an accurate sample, taken the old fashioned way, with today’s technology, we can project quickly AND accurately. We may not quite understand the why and how computers make things better. It is enough to understand that they do, and in the case of the census, it may just be time to let them move us into the 21st Century!