Posted on 05/21/2012 3:38:33 PM PDT by NYer
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Here’s another take on this election from Jim Arkedis of the Progressive Policy Institute. It offers a window into how Democrats are thinking about Catholics:
Catholics are up for grabs this year. A Gallup poll from April has President Obama and Mitt Romney tied among Catholics, 46 percent each. At nearly 20 percent of the population, Catholics have roughly mirrored the popular votein the last eight elections. They voted for Ronald Reagan and George Bush, but switched to Bill Clinton in 1992 and 1996. In 2000, Catholics, like the country, went under 50 percent for George W. Bush; but against John Kerry,Bush took 52 percent; by 2008, they’d flipped to Barack Obama, 54-45.
It’s unclear whether the Obama campaign will specifically organize Catholic supporters or try to persuade moderate ones. This Monday, the campaign hired Michael Wear as its faith vote director. That’s an excellent first step, and Wear’s experience organizing faith-based outreach for Obama in 2008 and in the White House indicates that the Obama campaign is taking people who make their faith a priority seriously. Wear might have too much on his plate, however — the campaign Web site groups Catholics, Protestants, Jews, Southern Baptists and Muslims under a one-size-fits-all “Voters of Faith” outreach program. It’s a mistake to treat the Catholic vote just like the rest.
Perhaps no presidential candidate since John F. Kennedy has been able to unite this disparate flock. But President Obama’s task isn’t that tough. The key to winning the Catholic vote is to understand its composition — litmus-test abortion voters, moderates, women and Hispanics — and to aim to carry persuadable Catholics by healthy margins in crucial swing states. Failure to deliver them could cost the president re-election.
Recent events suggest that these vast groups of Catholic voters (again: women, moderates, Latinos) are now more open to a progressive faith-based message than they have been perhaps since Kennedy-Nixon. The Obama campaign should tread lightly, however, and resist any poll-driven urge to drive a wedge between the faithful and official church positions on women’s issues or same-sex marriage. Divisive messaging probably won’t fly among most Catholics, who may grumble about their religious leaders’ positions, but don’t seek overt separation from them. I can’t say that there’s any scientific evidence to support this theory, but it comes from my observations over a lifetime in the Catholic community.
The Obama campaign’s message should unequivocally stand with the church and Jesus Christ’s humble message of social justice, equality and inclusion. These are distinctly Catholic themes that draw sharp contrasts for Catholics who have tired of a Republican Party with less room for those who are not straight, male, white and self-sufficient…
…What would a Catholic voter outreach program look like? The Roman Catholic Church doesn’t exactly let political operatives walk in the front door and set up shop, but there are several progressive Catholic organizations — Catholics United, Catholics in Alliance, Catholic Democrats — that the campaign could engage first to build a volunteer corps. Within each district office, the campaign could identify Catholic precinct captains to recruit Catholic door-knockers to reach out to their friends from church. Then there’s advertising. It would be more difficult to construct this architecture from scratch, but however it’s done, it’s a must: a positive social justice message could be what tips the balance toward re-election for the president.
As a moderate Democrat and a Catholic, I disagree with my party when I say that I believe life begins at conception or that abortions should be performed only in cases of rape, incest or when a pregnancy threatens a mother’s life. In another era, those beliefs might have made me a Republican target. But I’m a Democrat, in part, because of the party’s deep belief in social justice: We’re the ones who make equality and inclusion central to our very being; we stick up for the little guy; we don’t believe everyone should fend for themselves all the time. That’s what Jesus said, and that’s the society President Obama wants to build.
I think that the Democratic Party has just screwed itself.
Check your premises - you will find one of them to be in error.
Wrong. Nobody polls the Pope on these things.
The polls count self-identified Catholics.
As I've tried to explain to you multiple times, it's meaningless to speak of a "Catholic vote" if we're going to count "Catholics" who never actually attend Mass.
It's asking us to believe that someone's (claimed) faith influences their behavior in the voting booth in some significant manner, when it clearly doesn't influence their behavior at all in a matter as simple and mundane as getting out of bed and getting to Mass on Sunday morning.
....Or getting the Sunday mass obligation done and over with on the Saturday night before.
Don't churchgoing Catholics always break sharply for the presidential candidate less aligned with baby killing?
I think if there's a sharper turn than usual, it'll be because the economy's in the toilet. Here in the Philly burbs, even the diehard union folk are beginning to badmouth Obama. These days, a smaller subset of them are practicing Catholics than in days gone by, but these guys are breaking towards Romney and it has nothing to do with the contraception mandate or abortion. For them, it's always been about their own pockets and a hazy perception that the Dem is out to protect the little guy.
I'm under the impression that church-going Catholics tend to give majorities to “the presidential candidate less aligned with baby killing,” but not always a very large majority.
An increase of 10% of the vote of church-going Catholics for Romney over what McCain got, combined with an overall higher turnout by this population could make a two-million vote swing away from the Kenyan anti-Christ to Romney.
By itself, that's not enough to swing the election. But it's a darned good piece of what's needed.
As well, I don't think that it's birth control that's driving away church-going Catholics. Most church-going Catholics of child-bearing age who are married (or, sadly, sexually active without the benefit of marriage) use contraceptives. I just don't think they like the idea of the gubmint telling the Church what constitutes religious liberty.
As for the less-devout Catholics of whom you speak, who vote their pocketbooks primarily, you could well be right. I don't have as much first-hand contact with folks like that, but certainly, Obama’s economic record isn't conducive to pocketbook voters. A loss of 5 - 10% of this group could constitute a swing of another million or two votes.
A million here, a million there...
Even if Romney and Obama essentially tie for the overall Catholic vote (and I'm personally somewhat more optimistic than that), it would represent a swing of at least 3 million votes (Romney would receive 1.5 million more than the baseline, Obama would receive 1.5 million fewer than the baseline).
That sort of loss from a group that represents only about a quarter of the electorate would be devastating to the anti-Christ.
sitetest
“But I’m a Democrat, in part, because of the party’s deep belief in social justice: We’re the ones who make equality and inclusion central to our very being; we stick up for the little guy; we don’t believe everyone should fend for themselves all the time. That’s what Jesus said, and that’s the society President Obama wants to build.”
No point in belonging to a Party that holds you in disdain. Republicans have been known to ignore or give false promises to people of faith, also, but there is not an ingrained disdain of Christianity in that party. As a newly-minted Republican, I am to do whatever I want to help “the little guy”, including the unborn, and nobody is sneering at me, my faith, or my efforts.
There's a long anti-political tradition at the local church. The only one I remember overtly was collecting signatures to overturn Granholm's veto of a partial birth abortion ban.
Don't be obsessed with only counting Catholics who are pure enough to meet your personal approval, being how the world of voting and politics counts Catholics.
Everyone polled self-identifies, Protestant, Catholic, atheist, Jewish, non-religious. Even when screened for religiosity, Catholics don't come off too well when compared to non-catholic Christians.
It's asking us to believe that someone's (claimed) faith influences their behavior in the voting booth in some significant manner, when it clearly doesn't influence their behavior at all in a matter as simple and mundane as getting out of bed and getting to Mass on Sunday morning.
It does with non-catholic Christians. The pro-abortion, pro-homosexual, anti-God democratic Presidential candidate has never won the Protestant vote, and it isn't because they are all going to church, or even belong to a church.
They include anyone who self-identifies as Catholic, no matter how long it's been since they darkened the doorstep of a Catholic Church.
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