Moreover, the author makes the same deliberate "mistake" that most right wing anti-Catholic bigots do: he assumes all who say they are Catholic, or have Catholic parents, or an uncle that's Catholic, are truly Catholic. Of course they aren't, but it's handy to use these non-Catholics as a straw-man to bash Catholicism. Is a small, Calvinist church in the middle of WASP country going to be more ideologically pure? Of course. Does this somehow invalidate Catholicism? They'd like to think so. Nonsense, Catholic means baptized members of the Catholic denomination who consider themselves Catholics.
Protestant means all the other Christians, people who have never been baptized or may not have ever been in a church but consider themselves a Christian, blacks, Hispanics, gay Episcopalians, Lutherans, Evangelicals, and any and all, it is a vastly more diluted category than the baptized Catholic church members, yet the catch-all non-catholic Christian category is still far to the right of the catholic denomination.
The author is trying to draw a link between Catholicism (its teachings, practices, and traditions) to those that vote Democrat. If you're going to do that, wouldn't it make sense to first find those that observe the teachings, practices, and traditions of Catholicism, then see how
they vote?
Catholic means baptized members of the Catholic denomination who consider themselves Catholics.
If I merely consider myself a conservative, does that make it so even though I vote for socialism?