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It turns out that one of the most contentious and visible issues in the 2004 election, the denial of the Eucharist to pro-abortion politicians, did not hurt the pro-life side as many said it would.

That became obvious to us during the election. The Eucharist issue focused attention on the candidates abortion stances. The result was that the pro-life Catholics realized how bad the Democratic candidates were. Had that attention not been focused on the candidate's abortion stances, many voters might have ignorantly or foolishly pulled the lever for the Dem., thinking he wasn't so bad because he "seemed" pro-life when he talked to them. When the Bishops talked about denying the Eucharist, the naive among us started to realize that no matter how nice the guy sounded on abortion, the reality was that they voted for evil, and that the words were empty.

I'm convinced that the Eucharist issue could have hurt pro-lifers had it been pushed hard all the way to the conclusion of excommunication (during an election), but that its limited press play actually helped us, as it was raised, and then largely dropped, but the focus on abortion was still there.

The poll found that when white Catholics were asked whether or not they were more or less likely to vote for a Democrat that "is denied communion by the area's bishop for voting to support abortion rights" 49 percent said they were less likely while 33 percent said they were more likely.

These results are nearly meaningless. Obviously 82% (49+33) of the Catholics were not swing voters who could be moved by a Bishop talking about denying the Eucharist. Obviously that isn't the case, so we are including quite a few people who are ALWAYS going to vote for one side or the other. These people may say the Bishop's actions make them more likely to vote a particular way, but in reality they are pretty well along the way already. What would be valuable is to poll only those who are swing voters on this question. That would tell us

Also, keep in mind that the poll group's population was already heavily weighted against voting for the pro-abortion candidate, so seeing 49% say "less likely" here is rather unsurprising.

The memo advises Democrat candidates to get around the issue by presenting themselves as one who "[b]elieves in a woman's right to choose but believes all sides should come together around the common goal of preventing and reducing the number of abortions, with more sex ed, including abstinence, access to contraception and more adoption."

Maybe I missed things, but I thought this had been their approach for the last decade. I don't think it will work.

I'm pretty sure Kerry tried real hard to tell Catholics he "personally opposed" abortion.

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