When Rush Limbaugh suggested last week that the census was deliberately skipping Republican neighborhoods in order to under-represent the right, he added yet another theory to the growing library of census paranoia stories emanating from right-wing blogs, and Republican congressmen.
Conservatives have kicked up such a fuss about the census — suggesting, for example, that it will help legalize gay marriage or lead to WWII-style internment camps — that Republicans have become worried that their supporters will be under-represented. The Census Bureau even pushed back, getting Karl Rove to cut an ad lauding the constitutionality of the head count.
TPM brings you some of the best tales of horror and intrigue surrounding the census:
Last week, Limbaugh wondered aloud about whether the bureau was deliberately skipping Republican neighborhoods.
“I told you I’ve never received a census form. I remember as a little kid the census people coming into the house. I haven’t seen a census form since I left home in 1970,” Limbaugh said. “I wonder how widespread this is, that areas thought to be Republican are either not getting forms or not being visited by the census workers. Nothing would surprise me.”
Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) last year reminded us via Fox News that the Census Bureau once handed over data to the government in order to round up Japanese-Americans during World War II. She also announced that her family wouldn’t fill out the Census entirely but would only put down the number of people in their home. Bachmann has since retreated from such statements.
Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX), perhaps the House’s most staunch Libertarian, warned in a column last month that census data has been abused in the past. He used both the internment example and said the IRS has used census data in order to catch alleged tax evaders.
“From a constitutional perspective, of course, the answer to each of these questions is: ‘None of your business,'” Paul wrote. “But why is the government so intent on compiling this information in the first place?” Paul was the only congressman to vote against a resolution encouraging people to participate in the census.
The far-far-right web site World Net Daily suggests the government could use data to round up and deport illegal immigrants.
CNSnews.com has a few theories of its own: The census is pushing the country toward “redefining marriage” by allowing gay couples to fill out their forms as a married couple, regardless of whether their state recognizes gay marriage. It’s working with community organizers to count illegal immigrants. It’s sending some people two forms, risking double-counting.
WND has also taken part in the more widespread fear of the American Community Survey, a yearly sample of the population that asks 48 questions, compared to the Census’ 10. A sample headline: “Big Brother asks: ‘Do you have a flush toilet?'”
The ACS overall has been the subject of much more fervent paranoia. RedState.com editor and new CNN contributor Erick Erickson said on his radio show recently that, while he believed in the Census, he’d take out his wife’s shotgun if anyone working for ACS showed up at his house. 
“I’m not filling out this form. I dare them to try and come throw me in jail. I dare them to. Pull out my wife’s shotgun and see how that little ACS twerp likes being scared at the door. They’re not going on my property,” he said.
Erickson said in a later blog post that he was referring to a Weekly Standard story that ACS workers had harassed Daniel Freedman, a foreign policy analyst who worked on Rudy Giuliani’s presidential campaign. Erickson said he would only take out a gun if someone working for the ACS tried to arrest him.
White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs responded to Erickson’s comments today, called the comments “the remarkably crazy remarks of somebody that would threaten somebody simply trying to ensure that they’re adequately represented in this country.”
