Republican Congressional Members Practice What They Preach: Find Out How Many Children They Actually Have

Greetings From Almost 200 Romneys

Hello to all and thanks for checking in.

I am psyched about today's post. Did you know that amongst the 8 (major, did not count Buddy Roemer or Gary Johnson) GOP nominees, they have 35 children combined? I kid you not. The breakdown is as follows: Bachmann 5, Cain 2, Gingrich 2 (1st wife), the other 2 wives didn't have to have any baby Newts, Huntsmann 7, Paul 5, Perry 2, Romney 5, and Santorum 7. On top of all that, the Bachmanns have upped the ante and have taken care of 23 foster children over the years.

Blog Favorite: Marcus Bachmann

What the hell is going on here? I had 5 immediate thoughts:

Thought 1: There's no way Marcus Bachmann has had sex at least 5 times with Michele (there are no twins or triplets in their litter) See GOP Debate Preview, Part I, for more thoughts on the Bachmanns.

Thought 2: Somewhere along the lines, in the Republican party, patriotism got merged with fertility in some weird way. They do sell themselves as the "family values" party. With all these kids, you have a permanent and constant photo-op and it possibly helps to push that "family first" meme. It's either that or they're all having a world of trouble counting the days with the Rhythm Method.

Thought 3: They are creating an army of Republican offspring, to dumb down another generation in this country. And, if that's the case, just know that I'm onto your plan.

Thought 4: They are attempting to nearly single-handedly slow the course of future US demographics. By the year 2050, the United States will be a majority-minority country. Check out the (somewhat creepy) picture of the Romney extended family and you can see what I'm getting at. There are enough Romneys for a full soccer match.

Thought 5: They are REALLY not into contraception!

With all this being said, I wondered how the number of children of (current) GOP Congressional members compared to the rest of the general population. I want to preface what I'm going to say next, by saying that I'm a well-adjusted, social, happily married man, and not a hermit. To find my answer, I literally counted the number of children from each member of the 112th Congress. I couldn't find my answer anywhere on the net, so I figured I'd do it myself. To top it off, a friend suggested that I do it for the Democrats as well, to draw a further contrast. I then compared all that data to 2000 & 2010 Census data, to compare the average from our ruling elites, to the rest of us. Again, I'm not a hermit. I swear. And, by the way, at the end of the post I will be giving out what I'm calling the "Family Picture Award." It will be awarded to the Congressional members (one each for the GOP and Dems) with the most combined kids, grandkids, and great-grandchildren.

A couple of quick notes: I started to research this near the end of December and had to take a bit of creative license with the data. So, I only counted only the current members of Congress, not those sworn in at the beginning of the 112th Congress. For instance, Anthony Weiner's and John Ensign's info is not taken into account, since they stepped down prior to my research. However, their replacements are counted. And, I counted Bernie Sanders as a Democrat and Joe Lieberman as a Republican (since they caucus with those respective parties). And, I also counted Ben Nelson as a Republican. Just kidding on that one. I can not stand Conserva-Dems. And, I'm still upset about the "Cornhusker Kickback." Now, if you get that reference, you might be too into politics (like me) and there's a prize waiting for you at the end of the post.

I obtained all the information from either the member's bio page on their personal websites or a wonderful site call CongressMerge. They do a great job of aggregating info on our Congressional members and made this research much faster than it will seem. Give them a look, if you're doing any research on our Congress. Ok, let's get to it.

There are 290 Republican House and Senate members combined. 242 in the House and 48 in the Senate (again counting Lieberman). Those 290 members have a whopping 802 children combined, giving you an average of 2.76 kids per member. But, when you mine the data a bit further, I learned that only 28 members don't have any children. When you take those members out of the calculation (which is also done in our Census), the average goes up to 3.18 kids per member with a child. Consider that. Just under 90% of Republican members of Congress have at least one child. The national average is just under 50%. We have over 71 million families in this country and 34.5 million families have at least one child (as of the 2000 Census). The equivalent data was tough to find for the 2010 Census. However, I was able to find that the average family size did drop in the 2010 Census. So, that 50 % ratio should have held in 2010 or maybe even lowered. We have finally found an issue where conservatives actually practice what they preach.

The Democrats are beating the national averages as well, but are behind the Republicans. There are 244 Democratic members in the 112th Congress (192 in the House, 52 in the Senate). Those 244 members have only (?) 518 children, for an average of 2.12. However, there are 41 members without children. When you take them out of the equation, the average jumps up to 2.55. The number of Dems with at least one child is right at 84%. Again, behind the Republicans, but way ahead of the national average.

Ladies Man: Roscoe Bartlett

Onto the awards! The winner of the 1st Family Picture Award on the Republican side is Roscoe Bartlett of the 6th District in Maryland. He has 10 children of his own and 17 grandchildren (no mention of great-grandchildren on CongressMerge). I'm sure Mr. Bartlett is busy around the holidays. Honorable Mention goes to Sue Myrick of the 9th District of North Carolina. She has 5 children, 12 grandchildren, and 7 great-grandchildren.

On the Democratic side, it was not as close. The Family Picture Award goes to Senator Daniel Akaka of Hawaii. He has 5 children, 15 grandchildren, and 13 great-grandchildren. I would need nametags to keep track of that many kids. Anyway, Honorable Mention goes to Senator (and Majority Leader) Harry Reid of Nevada. He has 5 children and 16 grandchildren.

Separated At Birth

By how much are our elected officials beating the national average? In the 2000 Census, data showed that there was 0.90 children per family and 1.86 children per family with a child. Republicans are beating that "family with a child" number by a full 1.3 children. Dems are beating the national average by nearly 0.70. And, I also learned that power is a greater aphrodisiac than anyone could imagine. Human-tortoise hybrid, Mitch McConnell even has 3 children.

I'll leave it there for today, thanks again for checking in.

See you next time,

James

Live Blog of the (10/18) GOP Debate!

Hello all, this is my first time doing this. I hope you all enjoy it. There’s been a minor change of plans. I’ve mangled my whole preview idea. Now, the previews of Ron Paul/Rick Perry and Mitt Romney/Rick Santorum will appear here on Thursday and Friday, respectively. So, if you’re keeping track at home, you’ve gotten (or will get) a 1/2 a preview, a review/live blog of the event, and then the other half of the preview for said event. Ugh, I’m trying. I’m just so bad with dates. I think I’m a couple of years from forgetting my own birthday. On to the debate, coming to you from Las Vegas.

8:00 PM: Occupy Las Vegas is outside the pre-show, chanting, drowning out the talking heads, the night is looking up.

8:02: Wondering how long till the first Occupy Wall Street question.

8:03: Just 7 candidates tonight, Huntsman is out (no reason given). Maybe he thought it was Thursday like I did.

8:05: Crowd gives the Magnificent Seven a standing ovation. And, they move into the National Anthem. What the hell?!?! This isn’t a football game.

8:06: No military flyover inside the auditorium

8:08: Santorum slips in a mention of his 7 children during intros. I think the kids are props (more on this in Friday’s post).

8:09: They span the crowd and Wayne Newton is in the building! He looks like a Madame Tussauds wax statue at this point, loads of makeup. Wait, there’s a Madame Tussauds in Vegas, that might be the statue.

8:12: Cain’s 9-9-9 plan gets attacked out the gate. Santorum states that it will raise taxes on 84% of the population (that’s actually true). See you Herman, it’s been fun.

8:15: Bachmann sounding like a normal human being on the 9-9-9 plan. She used to be an IRS tax attorney.

8:16: Perry drops his first letter “g” off of a word. The winning word was “fixin”. (re: the economy)

8:18 Ron Paul comes out for a 0% federal income tax rate, no word on how roads and stuff will be paid for. Maybe we can drive our cars on our freedom from taxation? Who knows, he’s old.

8:20: Romney comes out for a lower corporate income tax. He’s banking on people not knowing that 68% of corporations don’t pay them anyway.

8:22: Newt’s up and he’s for lower corporate taxes too (see above).

8:23: Bachmann is for raising taxes on the working poor, saying they should pay something. Ignoring the fact they pay state/local taxes, payroll, and sales taxes. And, it’s of course, a higher percentage of their income.

8:24: Bachmann gets the first “Obamacare” (OC) reference in tonight. It’s usually her.
 
8:26-8:29: Romney gets the 2nd OC reference in, Santorum hits back, saying that OC was based on Romney’s health care bill in Massachusetts (this is actually true). Now they’re arguing, nice. The health care bills will be addressed in Friday’s post.

8:30: Whoa, Santorum hits back with a “RomneyCare” (RC) reference and slipped an OC reference in the same sentence. Double talking point win! And, I think you have to take a shot, if you’re playing the GOP/health care drinking game at home.

8:31: Oh no! They pulled Anderson Cooper (AC) in. He just said “OC."

8:32: These things take forever to go to a commercial. Shut up guys, need a bathroom break here.

8:33: Newt and Mitt fighting. Wow, Newt slips in a “HillaryCare” (Clinton’s 90′s health care plan) reference. These f’ers have nicknames for everything.

8:34: Bachmann comes out for repeal of ObamaCare (dammit now they’ve got me saying it), crowd cheers. The Republicans want the freedom to die without health insurance.

8:35: Thank god or Ronald Reagan. Commercial!!  BRB

8:38: AC with 2 more OC references (I should have put an abbreviation guide in this). CNN really sucks. Ron Paul also joins the OC bandwagon.

8:39: Cain joins the OC bandwagon. Everyone in the pool, the water’s fine!

8:41: Perry attacks Romney on him hiring illegal immigrants for house work, more arguing, Romney dickish-ly says, “it’s been a couple of tough debates for Rick.” The best show on TV.

8:43: Romney hits back on Texas giving illegal immigrants in-state tuition rates for colleges (that’s actually true). Romney is in full rich guy, douchebag mode here.

8:45: Cain wants a 2,000 mile, electrified fence on the Texas-Mexico border, to either keep us in or the Mexicans out. But, if one these squids win, that fence will be keeping us in. It will be a reverse run for the border.

8:47: Perry wants drones to keep out the Mexicans, who will do the jobs we won’t do? He probably didn’t think it that far through.

8:49: Bachmann comes out for English as the country’s official language. That’s strange, I kinda thought it was already. Idiots applaud.

8:51: Perry tries to bring up Mitt’s illegal immigrant worker issue, crowd has moved on, boos Perry. Goodbye Rick.. I’ll be able to sleep knowing there won’t be another Texas governor in the White House for a while.

8:55: 55 minutes in, no mention of war, Wall Street, or taxes. There has been about 50 ObamaCare references and 30 references to a big fence. Priorities.

8:58: There’s been a lot of talk about Mexicans coming in, no mention of our sneaky neighbors to the North.

9:00: Ron Paul makes the first anti-war comment, took an hour, but we’re at the big stuff.

9:02: If Droopy Dog were a human, I think he would look like Ron Paul.

9:03: Rick Perry drops a George Bush-esque “nucular” (re: energy. not blowing up another country)

9:09: First Occupy Wall Street (OWS) question. Cain stands by his “lay off Wall Street” comments from a few days ago. Crowd cheers. It’s the Twilight Zone.

9:10: OWS question comes to Ron Paul, he looks like he was dozing a bit just before (he’s 76). Might be pass his bedtime. Get him some warm milk during the next commercial.

9:11 36 minutes since the last commercial. This is grueling.

9:13: Mitt dodges his flip-flop on the OWS protests, true to form (will be addressed in Friday’s post)
9:14: Lord Ronald Reagan (I’m figuring this is who Repubs pray to) has blessed me with another commercial break.

9:21: Newt’s going on about morality and faith. I think he should wear multiple wedding rings, like the “Big Love” guy.

9:28: Another question to Ron Paul, looks as though it wakes him up. But, he does speak about military cuts, ending wars, etc (will be addressed Thursday, I’m with him on this)

9:32: Santorum doesn’t want to cut “one penny” from defense. Time for facts: The US spends more than the other top 20 countries, in military spending, combined. So, you could probably find a few pennies.

9:34: Question from the audience: person wants a stop to all foreign aid. More facts, foreign aid is about 1.5% of the budget, defense is about 15%. So, we can cut foreign aid, but not one penny from defense, seems reasonable.

9:35-9:45: More bickering, another commercial, blah, blah, blah, Obamacare, low taxes, blah, blah, Romneycare…I’m getting tired. It’s all starting to sound the same.

9:52: Another standing ovation. Who knows why? Maybe they’re just happy its over.
No clear winner tonight. Clear loser: the American people

See you soon,
James