I used this site as a reference:
http://www.qev.com/reports.political.catholic.htm
Here are a few excerpts:
...Everyone agrees that their political allegiance is now up for grabs after decades of being a lock for the Democrats, but they are also surprisingly finicky, refusing to become solid party votes....
...Stripping away inactive Catholics who retain the label as a cultural identification, the real swing voters are active Catholics....
(FROM CRISIS MAGAZINE IN 11/98)...The evidence is that religiously active Catholics are at last aligning politically with born-again, evangelical Christians....
...In 1996, Clinton carried these states (Illinois, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Missouri, Kentucky), while nationwide receiving 54 percent of Catholic votes cast, versus 38 percent for Bob Dole and 8 percent for Ross Perot. According to our electoral vote modeling, had just 15 percent of the Catholic vote shifted to Dole — had he received 53 percent of the Catholic vote while everything else stayed the same — Dole would have been elected President. And Governor Bush is doing 10 points better than that mark. The question is, why?
...Nearly half of Catholic voters are today swing voters, and can be taken for granted by neither party...
.............................................
While it is true that the Catholics are trending to the center/right, it is still a fact that a large group of Catholics still vote democrat, for no other reason than having been won over in 1962 by John Kennedy. It is also traue that this same press release (from the 2000 election) says a lot good about the move of the Catholic voters.
It is well known that the Catholics are a huge swing vote, because John McCain angered a lot of Catholics against George Bush during the 2000 Republican primary, by calling him "anti-Catholic". He then placed the McCain signs in front of many large Catholic churches. Yeah, Catholics are in the left side of the middle as a block.
It is obvios that the Catholic voters are moving, and this is good news. But the fact is, they should never have been swing voters. And, using Kerry, Kennedy (pick one), Clinton (pick one) and Schumer are excellent sources of evidence.
That my friend, is what is lame.....