It’s About Abortion, Stupid

MSNBC/Newsweek ^ | September 28, 2004 | Melinda Henneberger

[sitetest]

And other moral issues. Why John Kerry has trouble making the moral argumentWEB EXCLUSIVE

By Melinda Henneberger

Newsweek

Updated: 2:08 p.m. ET Sept. 24, 2004Sept. 23 - The Democrats are likely to lose the Catholic vote in November—and John Kerry could well lose the election as a result. It’s about abortion, stupid. And “choice,” make no mistake, is killing the Democratic Party.

A recent Zogby poll shows that in key battleground states including Minnesota, Iowa, Wisconsin, New Hampshire and Pennsylvania, Catholic voters are far more likely than the general public to vote for President George W. Bush over Kerry. In Minnesota, for instance, 60 percent of Catholics say they’ll go for Bush, versus 44 percent of all Minnesotans.

[bornacatholic]

I don't have anything to base my insticts on. I just don't trust the polls and the major media nor do I trust Kerry. I don't think I am too diferent from most Americans. I have a gut feeling that at the last minute many undecideds will think "darn it, I can't trust that guy" and they will go and vote for Bush.

[BlessedBeGod]

Wow! Catholics who are actually going to act Catholic!

What a switch from previous elections. They're finally "getting it."

[wideawake]

Very few people realize that many Catholics are willing to accept "choice" in cases of rape and health but still realize that abortion is fundamentally evil and that abortion on demand is an utter abomination.

President Clinton tapped into this ambiguity when he said that abortion should be "safe, legal and rare" - a lot of Catholic Democrats liked that language and did not realize how much of a lie it was until President Clinton was reelected and started to push partial-birth abortion.

These people have no illusions that Senator Kerry will support restrictions on the murder of unborn children - he hasn't even suggested limitations of any kind the way President Clinton (and implicitly his reluctant sidekick Vice President Gore) did.

[wideawake]

Catholics are still forbidden from joining societies that take secret oaths of loyalty.

While I agree that Skull and Bones, unlike the Masons, was not intended as a secret society designed to infiltrate the True Church and set up a parallel false church, it is still a secret society and Catholics cannot in conscience join it.

[Casloy]

They'd spend considerably more time and energy trying to convince Tom that stewardshop of the environment is a moral issue, too. They'd focus on the question of whether the intervention in Iraq is a just war. They'd make the case that fiscal policy that favors the wealthy is morally wrong.

Got this far, then realized it was the same old same old.

[DManA]

You made your point. If you keep posting this to me it's just harassment.

[Coleus]

harassment >>

Give me a break.

[MHGinTN]

The author is making this up out of whole cloth ... democrat voters will not stray from their mission as defined by the DNC ... hate Bush because Gore didn't succeed in stealing the 2000 election, so anyone but Bush in November. I wonder why this vacuous-brained author thinks Catholic Democrat voters are suddenly going to reject the big lie of the DNC about 'choice'? Could we have an effort at reverse thinking here; could the author be trying to blunt possible turncoat voters?

[windchime]

Bump!