The Catholic Voter Still Matters

[BlueStateSaint]

An interesting article that I found linked to by Hugh Hewitt's blog on Townhall.com.  Basically, if you win the Catholic vote (either plurality as was done by Reagan in 1980 or Clinton in 1992, or outright majority), your address becomes (or stays) 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

The Catholic Voter Still Matters

Wednesday, 11 June 2008

By George Marlin
   
In November 2004, Democratic Party elites were shocked that baptized Catholic John Kerry lost his bid for the presidency because pro-life blue-collar Catholic Democrats in the Midwest battleground states voted overwhelmingly for George Bush.

Reacting to the election results, The New York Times favorite “anti-Catholic” Catholic writer, Garry Wills, wrote on the November 4 op-ed page that “many more Americans believe in the Virgin Birth than in Darwin’s theory of evolution.” Maureen Dowd of The Times accused Republicans of dividing America “along fault lines of fear, intolerance, ignorance and religious rule.” E.J. Dionne of The Washington Post, blamed Kerry’s defeat on “the exploitation of strong religious feelings.” Ronald Dworkin wrote in The New York Review of Books that Bush’s alliance with the religious Right has already “proved a serious threat to America’s commitment to social inclusiveness.”

Some Democrats in the post-election 2004 period, however, lectured the Party’s progressive intelligentsia that it was time for them to attempt at least to appeal to the cultural views of ordinary Americans. To make that case, Democracy Corps – a political tactics group founded by Democratic consultants James Carville, Bob Shrum, and pollster Stanley Greenberg – released polling data that showed 49 percent of white Catholics were less likely to vote for candidates who are denied Communion by their local bishop. The poll also indicated that abortion is not a fading issue: “Although the pro-life position is strongest among seniors, Catholics’ current pro-life position does not appear likely to lessen with time. While middle-age Catholics lean toward keeping abortion legal, voters under thirty are more pro-life; 53 percent believe abortion should be illegal in most cases.” Reading these political tea leaves, New York Senator Hillary Clinton shook the foundations of the liberal establishment when, in early 2005, she called on Democrats to be more tolerant of the beliefs of those who oppose abortion. To capture Catholic votes in 2008, this hard-left ideologue moved to the center and portrayed herself as a gun-toting, beer-swilling, middle American.

This strategy paid off. In the industrial heartland – Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Indiana – Senator Clinton won the Catholic vote by more than two to one.

It's incredibly interesting.  The rest is at:

http://www.thecatholicthing.org/


 

[Lord Undies]

That is interesting.  I have faith in the common decency of the American public, born from their religious faith.  I know with heart and soul that Barack Obama will not come close to winning the general election in November. 

Meanwhile, it is fun to watch the media and the wicked liberals try to convince this nation that Obama has the world by the tail.   The lies and distortions we will hear and see between now and November will be astounding in their audacity.   

[terry]

It is interesting, but I wonder why the Clintons would appeal to practicing Catholics.     Why would they go for Clinton over Bush Sr, and then go for Clinton again for re-election?

Catholic Vote 1972 – 2004

1972 Nixon 52%
1976 Carter 57%
1980 Reagan 47%*
1984 Reagan 61%
1988 Bush 51%
1992 Clinton 44%*
1996 Clinton 54%
2000 Bush 51%
2004 Bush 52%

*Plurality Victory

[franksolich]

This is another one of those instances where people tend to vote against their own best interests, like those of Jewish derivation voting for Democrats despite the benignity towards terrorism of that party.

Entrenched habits die hard, and I noticed it among Catholics of Pennsylvania and New Jersey when I lived there--and of course there's the sordid example of Catholics in Massachusetts constantly voting for Vast Teddy and the other crooks and felons there.

When Richard Nixon first made inroads into both the Jewish and Catholic vote in 1968 and 1972, it was commonly assumed, I suppose, that winning the hearts and minds of these people would be quick, but forty years of elections has shown only mild erosion, just a little tiny bit more, each passing election, rather than a major avalanche towards Republicans.

I have no idea why this is; progress, but only progress at the speed of a glacier.

As for abortion, the issue of abortion is not likely to go away.  Sometimes it waxes and wanes, but it's always there.  Sometimes it's a hot-button issue, other times it's a warm-button issue, and it's there.

We are never going to do away with abortion period, but I suspect subterranean resentment at that the abortion enthusiasts have had things their way much too long; the whole loaf, the whole thing.

For some reason, abortion enthusiasts consider the "right" to an abortion unconditional and unlimited--at the same time the rights of free expression and speech, the rights of religious (or anti-religious) practice, the rights of property, the rights of justice, while broad and vast, are NOT unconditional and unlimited.

Something's changing here, but it's happening imperceptibly.  All one knows is that it's changing.

[Chris_]

You know what? If you vote based on what groups you belong to, rather than by way of rational thought, you are an idiot.

[terry]

You know what? If you vote based on what groups you belong to, rather than by way of rational thought, you are an idiot.

I agree.  I don't think most people vote based on their group.   I'm Catholic and I know Catholics that are all over the place politically.   I think the article is trying to look at what Catholics believe, and how most Catholics have voted historically then trying to use that information to predict how many Catholics will vote.