Michael Barone notes how the relative decline in Hispanic immigration will increase the pressure on Latino leaders to make up for the losses in the 2010 census by getting the government to use statistical "sampling" techniques. ... The problem, of course, is that they may be sampling Latinos who are no longer there. ...
Leaving aside that this kind of fearmongering could just as easily be written about an *increase* in Hispanic immigration (wouldn't pressure on Latino leaders be even greater if they were gaining population?) ...
Leaving aside the unquestioned idea of Latino interest groups (all-powerful, naturally) "getting the government" to use statistical sampling when its been obvious for decades that the census dramatically undercounts certain populations and everyone except flat-earth types directly threatened by an accurate census accepts sampling ...
... ahem ...
... YOU CAN'T SAMPLE LATINOS WHO AREN'T THERE. What it means to take a sample is that you extrapolate data from a segment of the population to make estimates about the population as a whole. One can imagine a sample that contains fewer Latinos -- no doubt thanks to our nation's
One could argue that an estimate based on sampling could erroneously reflect people who aren't there (of course, in reality this kind of Type I error would be far, far outweighed by the Type II errors inherent in an actual enumeration), and I think this is what Mickey is trying to get at with his "Gran Salida Requires Gran Fudging" headline and in light of his fairly frequent immigration hysterias. Then again, the writing is so confusing that Mickey might be arguing for sampling techniques as a method to undercount (or properly count? my head hurts ...) the Latino population.
[An alternate reading of the piece is that he's trying to simultaneously criticize Barone, paint Latino leaders as naive, and question the reliability of statistics -- ed. Hey, throw in an attack on unions and a pointless Julia Allison reference and you've got a week's work at Kausfiles.]
Ordinarily, an inability to grasp the most basic terms necessary to understand the debate precludes a writer from wading into a particular issue ... but my sample of Mickey's non-existent professionalism indicates that we're way past all that now.
