[GOP_Party_Animal]

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?

[ansel12]

First we have 160 years history of the Catholic vote. “...the rise of the Democratic party as we know it was to a great extent concomitant with the first waves of Irish Catholic immigrants to Northern cities.”

Second, I don’t know how you get confused on a baptized adult member of a church denomination, being as vague and useless as calling themselves something like conservative or liberal, or modern.

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.