April 8, 2010
McHenry deliberately lies, disparages the Republican party
Patrick McHenry, in perhaps a grab for attention, has been caught in a deliberate, backhanded and malicious lie by PolitiFact. As you’ve probably heard, Patrick McHenry claimed that Conservatives are “measurably less likely than liberals to return their census forms“. The insinuation was that Conservatives were being tricked into not returning them.
Except it was a deliberate lie.
According to the Pulitzer Prize winning PolitiFact, McHenry’s statement is 100% false. Frances Deviney, senior research associate at the Center for Public Policy Priorities in Texas, says it best: “The short version is that what [McHenry]‘s saying doesn’t correlate with the data”. In Texas, the location McHenry was looking towards in regards to his statement, counties that had higher vote tallies for Republican John McCain (who McHenry attacked in the 2008 election) have slightly higher participation rates in the census. On top of that, a Pew study showed that a higher percentage of Republicans (90%) than Democrats and independents (85%) said they intend to participate in the census.
The long story short? Patrick McHenry deliberately lied and made Republicans look bad. Thanks!