Posted on 11/05/2004 2:58:50 PM PST by swilhelm73
It is said that George W. Bush won the 2004 presidential election because of religious voters, especially evangelical Protestants. What is not said is that John F. Kerry lost the election because he failed not only to win religious voters generally but Catholics specifically. Because he lost Catholics -- an amazing fact when one considers that Kerry himself is Catholic -- he lost the race.
Put differently, Catholics voted for the Protestant, George W. Bush, and did so in large part because they agree more with him than Kerry on moral issues, such as abortion, closest to Catholic hearts. Just as Al Gore did not win the Electoral College in 2000 because he couldn't carry his home state of Tennessee, John Kerry failed because he couldn't bring a natural constituency from his own church.
According to CNN's exit poll data, 27% of those who voted on Tuesday were Catholic, which equated to roughly 31 million of 115 million voters. How these Catholics voted is striking: They voted for Bush over Kerry by 51 to 48%. In other words, they mirrored the popular vote to the exact number.
Kerry lost the Catholic vote to Bush by at least a million. A Catholic with a major party nomination should have won the Catholic vote by several million. Another Democratic senator from Massachusetts, John F. Kennedy, once won an extremely close election because he overwhelmingly took the Catholic vote.
The numbers diverge more sharply when one considers devout Catholics compared to those who find their way to church only for weddings and Christmas. Catholics who attend Mass weekly voted for Bush by 55% to 44%.
The breakdown among states is most interesting. Bush remained close to Kerry in Pennsylvania, a state with millions of pro-life Catholic Democrats, which went for Kerry 52 to 48%, because he carried Catholics who go to Mass weekly by 52 to 48%. In New Hampshire, which barely went for Kerry, Bush took Catholics who attend Mass weekly by 63 to 35%.
Most impressive, Catholics played a key role in Florida and Ohio. In Florida, they comprised 28% of voters, and went for Bush 57 to 42%. In Ohio, they made up 26% and went to Bush 55 to 44%. The margin was even wider for Catholics who attend Mass weekly: In Florida, they went to Bush by almost two to one, 66 to 34%, and in Ohio they supported Bush by 65 to 35%.
In fact, Catholics for Bush made it unnecessary to begin counting provisional ballots in Ohio. Ohio Catholics cast 780,000 votes for Bush and 624,000 for Kerry, a difference of 156,000 votes. Compare that to the overall vote difference for all Ohio ballots: which was 136,000. Thus it can be asserted that Kerry lost Ohio, and therefore the election, because he couldn't get the support of people of his own faith in Ohio.
The Catholic vote kept Bush competitive in the liberal East, where the 41% of voters who are Catholic went for the Protestant president by 52 to 47%, and those who attend Mass weekly supported him by 56 to 42%. Bush actually won the Catholic vote in New York by 51 to 48%. Those Catholics were offset by the 12% of New Yorkers who claimed no religion at all; these atheists eagerly voted for Kerry by 78 to 19%. Kerry actually almost lost the Catholic vote in his own liberal home state of Massachusetts, where Catholics gave him the nod by a paltry 50 to 49%.
THE ISSUE BEHIND THIS Catholic snub was abortion. Pro-life Catholics were aghast at the prospect of a Catholic president becoming the greatest champion of legalized abortion ever to step foot in the Oval Office, as Kerry would have been. Kerry could speak all day about how his piety would prompt him to boost the minimum wage. Catholics could care less; they wanted him to defend babies in the womb.
The Democratic Party has ditched pro-life Catholic Democrats (like my grandmother in the mountains of Pennsylvania), pursuing instead the pro-choice feminist driving an SUV through the suburbs of Maryland. In so doing, it has lost the votes of millions of people who long voted Democrat. By bowing before the altar of the feminist church, liberals like John Kerry have ceded a huge constituency. It cost the Democrats the 2004 election, and may do so again in 2008.
Liberals will bellyache about how Karl Rove took the vote by mass-mobilizing evangelical Protestants. What they will not talk about is how they, and a presidential nominee named John F. Kerry, drove both evangelicals and Catholics toward Bush. Kerry did more for Protestant-Catholic unity in America than the churches themselves could accomplish. The fact is that moderate to conservative Catholics had nowhere to go but to George W. Bush.
Liberal Christians like Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi say that Democratic politicians are "faith-filled" people as well; they read the Bible and Matthew's gospel. However, if church-going Democrats want to win the church-going population, the solution is obvious: it's about abortion, stupid -- an answer they do not want to hear. Call us club-carrying troglodytes, but us simple-minded Christians in the hinterland just can't countenance that Jesus would be a champion of legalized abortion. And until Democrats recognize that, they will never win the churchgoers they need to drive them to the White House.
When I first looked at that map I thought the same thing. Then I looked at the numbers of votes for Bush among Catholics and realized that Bush still took the Catholic vote.
Just because there are more Catholics in those areas only means that some of them voted for Kerry.
We still have a lot of work to do in getting these CINOs educated about Catholicism.
LOL! Reminds me of when I made my First Confession - the Sunday before I approached the rector and asked him if I should make a special appointment since I had 43 years' worth of sins to go over. "Oh, no," he said. "Just come at the usual time." "It's going to be the Mother of All Confessions," I said. "Oh, don't worry, there'll be plenty of time. There aren't very many sinners in this parish." (This with the inimitable Irish accent and an adumbrated wink.)
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It is worse than even Kerry's politics on abortion. In the second debate he leveled a huge insult to every serious believer when he explained how his Catholic beliefs must not translate to his actions. Come again? What a pathetic creep.
Ping.
Exactly. If kerry had been an agnostic or athiest I could understand his stance on abortion.
"He has done all sorts of things that proclaim that he is NOT a Catholic and is just calling himself one to get votes - taking communion in a Protestant (AME) church administered by a female priest, attending a semi-schismatic church run by dissenting Catholics, remarrying in a civil ceremony, apparently remarrying without getting an annulment (though he applied for one), publicly scolding the conservative American bishops, plus of course his position on abortion."
It is worth bearing in mind by all Republicans, that it was not so much that Bush won this election, but that Kerry lost it!
If Kerry had been a faithful Catholic, he would have taken the Catholic vote and he would have won. There were enough Catholic voters in Ohio alone to ensure this. Many people have put their trust in W to defend the unborn and preserve the sanctity of marriage - I just hope that he delivers.
This election has shown a great contrast between America and Europe though. In Europe, Rocco Buttiglione lost his post on the European Commission because he is a faithful Catholic. In America, Kerry lost the election because he is an UNfaithful Catholic!
It was pathetic to hear this loser whining about the need for "unity and healing" in your country, and for that scumbag in the senate to warn Bush against appointing pro-lifers to the Supreme Court. Who won the d@@n election?
The voters did what was right - now its time for the politicians to do the same.
He is phony in everything even his Catholicism!
Truer words were never spoken. I think you've put your finger right on it.
You say you lost your faith
But that's not where it's at
You had no faith to lose
And you know it
Bob Dylan/Positively 4th Street
This is Kerry:
This writer is kind of delusional.
If Kerry had been a devout Catholic, he'd not have been nominated.
ONE thing is very simple to understand..... Republican vs. Democrat:
The Democrats are against capital punishment.... ok..... many Catholic and Protestant Christians ARE. The thing that twists my gut is this: To put to death to a human being who has been tried and convicted of horrible crimes (Ted Bundy, the Green River killer, and many others)is WRONG, but to put to death an innocent baby, a BABY....who has never committed any sin (unless being inconvenient is a sin)is RIGHT? Sorry folks, but THIS is INSANE! I'm not just talking the talk..... I have walked the walk! I would never IMAGINE doing otherwise! To me, this is just backwards, even evil. The guilty are spared, but the innocent are not.
I'd use a more appropriate word for Equus asinus.
I think you missed the point of the article. The writer was simply telling the obvious - that Democrats can no longer assume they will get the Catholic vote. They have had a monopoly on this segment of the population ever since the days of the know-nothings in about 1880. No more. The Democrats by embracing the radical feminist agenda have snubbed their most loyal base, a base that has been with them for 130 years.
I agree that in the end, the Democrats have united people of all faiths who are interested in real moral values. Unfortunately for them, they drove them all away.
Unfortunately too many Catholics are still falling for the "social justice" routine. As if taking from hard working people and giving to the lazy is justice.
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