How do Catholics normally vote? Are they generally democrats?
Have voted that way for a long time. My 91 year old dad, God bless his democratic heart, always votes that way. Can't understand it at all since he was Grand Knight at one time, and the Knights of Columbus are staunchly against abortion.............Go figure...........
For an evangelical Protestant to take the Catholic vote away from at least a nominally Catholic Democrat is a very big deal.
When the Democrats sold their souls to the Devil and the feminists to support unrestricted abortion they began the forfeiture of one of their core constituencies. And they wonder why they lose.
It started during the massive wave of emigration from Ireland after the 1847-1850 famine, which created a massive bloc of potential Democratic voters that corrupt big city machines e.g. Tammany Hall, could exploit in future elections.
The candidacy of James Blaine, a.k.a. the "plumed knight", probably crystallized the division between Protestants and Catholics in terms of voting patterns.
After the success of F.D.R. among recent So. European immigrants during the '30s, this division was exacerbated and probably reached its apex during the Kennedy-Nixon contest in 1960.
Fortunately, there are now a lot of "Reagan Democrats" that are able to counteract the influence of previous generations of Democratic voters.
Considering the fact that President Bush had to tackle three completely distinct constituencies, I think that he did one hell of a job.
There are Catholics who attend Mass regularly, who may be religiously conservative but fiscally liberal. There are Catholics who are completely secular and who probably wouldn't vote for Bush under any circumstances. Finally, you have people who may have been baptized into the R.C. church-and were quite possibly active when they were children-but who have gradually drifted away from the Church. While they may be culturally conservative that doesn't necessarily make them devout Catholics.
If Bush managed to carry a majority among two out of these three groups-which appears to be the case-I think that his campaign staff did a phenomenal job and accomplished something that will stand the test of time.