For the rest of the year, we'll be deluged with the results of the 2000 census. And I will eat them up.
In terms of understanding who we are as a nation, the census numbers are to sociological theorizing what election results are to polls, i.e., the hard news, the real thing even when they confirm what we thought we already knew.
And the coming of the numbers sets the stage for the decennial battles over congressional and legislative redistricting. These struggles represent politics in its primal form, which is to say they are about power pure and simple.
We've already seen enough to identify the two broad population trends that will dominate American politics in the decade to come.
One is geographic, the other demographic. One works in favor of the Republicans, and the other helps the Democrats, which seems only fitting at a time when the parties are functioning at near parity.
The geographic trend, which suits the GOP, is the continued movement of the population to the Sun Belt the core of the Republican Nation.
All of the states that gained enough people to merit additional seats in the House of Representatives were in the South and West. In most of those states, the Republicans are well-positioned to control the redistricting process and thereby increase their chances of retaining control of Congress in an election year, 2002, that history suggests ought to be tough for them.
To put it another way, the states George W. Bush carried last fall picked up seven House seats at the expense of the states that Al Gore carried. That shift, which will be reflected in the Electoral College, may help Bush hold the presidency in 2004.
But as much as the geographic trends seem to be aiding the Republicans, the demographics are running strongly in the Democrats' favor. This is a nation where racial and ethnic minorities are growing far more quickly than the population as a whole, and the Democrats, for all their problems, remain the party of minorities.
Last fall, while Bush thrashed Gore among non-Hispanic whites (still very much the national majority), he got only 8 percent of the black vote, 35 percent of the Hispanics and 41 percent of the Asians, according to the exit polls.
And while the black electorate, on whose unbending loyalty the Democrats have long relied, is growing at a rather modest pace, the Hispanic and Asian electorates are on track to mushroom, as their respective populations swell and as more of their immigrants become citizens and voters.
These demographic trends are altering political geography. In that regard, there is no better example than New Jersey.
A decade ago, when the state still seemed the embodiment of white suburbia, it was reliably Republican in presidential elections, having voted for the GOP candidate six times in a row from 1968 through 1988. Yet in the year 2000, it was deemed so safe for the Democrats that both major candidates ignored it, correctly anticipating Gore's 489,000-vote victory margin.
What happened? The growing social conservatism and southern/western tilt of the national Republican Party had something to do with it, as did the greater attention paid by Democrats to suburban concerns. But the magnitude of the transformation can't be explained without looking at the change in the makeup of the state's population.
According to the new census numbers, the state's non-Hispanic white population actually declined over the last 10 years. At the same time, the Hispanic numbers went up by 370,000, Asians by 210,000 and African-Americans by 105,000 while another 200,000 New Jerseyans put themselves in the new multiracial category. All of this was good for the Democrats.
Similar trends are evident in other states. This is why an American president has no choice but to create an administration that reflects the nation's ethnic and racial diversity.
For years, Republicans have talked of need to expand their minority support. With a President in the White House who sounds serious about outreach, and with the opposition in disarray, they have the chance to do so. If they fail to seize the moment, they'll regret it. The numbers don't lie.
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