At a time when Gov. Tim Pawlenty is trying to solidify his conservative bona fides, as conservatives have been vilifying the 2010 U.S. Census, he went out of his way Friday to talk up the decennial headcount. Kind of.

Responding to a question during his weekly radio show, Pawlenty stressed the importance of Minnesotans filling out their census forms, to be sure the state retains its eight U.S. House seats and gets its fair share of federal dollars.

As an aside, then, he added: "I haven't filled mine out yet," noting that weeks after the 10-question form arrived in his mailbox, "I haven't opened the envelope yet."

He said forms arrived at both his home in Eagan and at the governor's residence in St. Paul. "It's sitting on my desk in Eagan," he said.

Unlike other conservatives (most notably Rep. Michele Bachmann) who have talked about boycotting the census altogether, Pawlenty was quick to say "I'm gonna fill it out in a timely manner."

His spokesman, Brian McClung said later Friday that Pawlenty planned to fill out the form this weekend.

Although the formal deadline for returning census forms was April 1, the Census Bureau recently said households now have until April 16 to do so. After that, census workers will start visiting non-responding households on May 1.

Pawlenty said he doesn't want to "have some census worker chasing me around." McClung said his boss is "grateful" that the original April 1 deadline was pushed back a couple of weeks.

According to the census bureau, Pawlenty's in a distinct minority of Americans, given the fact that 64 percent of households have sent their forms in.

Coincidentally, the bureau plans to hold what it calls a "March to the Mailbox" rally at the Hmong American Partnership in St. Paul Saturday, in the hopes of encouraging people to retiurn their census forms. The bureau, which is targeting areas that have historically been difficult to enumerate, reported that mailing in the form costs 42 cents, as opposed to the $57 it costs to send an enumerator to a household.