Linda Chavez: Obama’s Catholic problem

Yahoo! News ^ | August 13, 2008 | Linda Chavez

[2ndDivisionVet]

Barack Obama has a Catholic problem. If he doesn’t do better than John Kerry did in 2004 with this quintessential swing voting bloc, he won’t be elected president. Obama’s campaign understands this — which is why they’re considering allowing a pro-life Democrat, Sen. Bob Casey of Pennsylvania, to speak at the Denver convention. Sen. Casey’s father, the late Governor of Pennsylvania Robert Casey Sr., was denied a speaking slot at the Democrats’ 1992 convention for fear of offending pro-choice Democrats. But simply allowing his son to speak at the convention won’t be enough to woo Catholics back.

Catholics are by no means a single-issue voting group. But for observant Catholics, those who attend Mass regularly and follow the Church’s teachings, a candidate’s position on abortion matters. Even among more broadly identified Catholics — those who call themselves Catholic, regardless of whether they are observant — 59 percent oppose abortion, according to a recent Time magazine poll. And Barack Obama’s record on this issue will cause pause for many of them.

Like most Democratic politicians, Barack Obama favors abortion rights for women, with few exceptions. He has recently said that he might support some limits on very late-term abortions, those that occur in the last trimester of pregnancy. But when it comes to actual legislative limits, he’s never found one yet he can vote for.

[Salvation]

**The late Cardinal Bernandin of Chicago said Catholics should not be single issue voters.**

Not true. Catholics can be single issue voters. (But everything else stinks about Obama, too.

[Salvation]

Here are the reasons that Catholics will not vote for Obama.

1:

CCC Search Result - Paragraph # 2271  (618 bytes )  preview document matches 1 Since the first century the Church has affirmed the moral evil of every procured abortion. This teaching has not changed and remains unchangeable. Direct abortion, URL: http://www.scborromeo.org/ccc/para/2271.htm

97%

2:

CCC Search Result - Paragraph # 2272  (580 bytes )  preview document matches 2 Formal cooperation in an abortion constitutes a grave offense. The Church attaches the canonical penalty of excommunication to this crime against human life. "A URL: http://www.scborromeo.org/ccc/para/2272.htm

96%

3:

CCC Search Result - Paragraph # 2322  (290 bytes )  preview document matches 2 From its conception, the child has the right to life. Direct abortion, that is, abortion willed as an end or as a means, is a "criminal" practice (GS 27 § 3), URL: http://www.scborromeo.org/ccc/para/2322.htm

96%

4:	CCC Search Result - Paragraph # 2274  (554 bytes )  preview document matches gravely opposed to the moral law when this is done with the thought of possibly inducing an abortion, depending upon the results: a diagnosis must not be the equivalent URL: http://www.scborromeo.org/ccc/para/2274.htm

[Salvation]

[fatima]

Democrat, Sen. Bob Casey of Pennsylvania, Shame on you.I cry with your Father.

[2ndDivisionVet]

I searched, as I always do, and it didn’t come up.

[Impy]

Now...if Hillary pulls out the nomination

Mom, I'm happy to inform you whoever led you to believe such a ridiculous scenario is possible is full of horse manure. HRC does not in fact have demonic powers.

[Impy]

I see McCain bring Macomb into the GOP column for the first time since 88

Bush won Macomb in 04 actually.

I hope you guys are right with the optimistic assessment. I vacillate between believing Bosama is certain to win and that he is certain to lose.

[AuH2ORepublican]

You’re right, President Bush carried Macomb with 50.24% in 2004; also, the first President Bush carried the county with 42.32% in 1992 (Perot got 19.46%). I’m hoping for John McCain to approach G.H.W. Bush’s 60.33% in Macomb from 1988 (although he certainly won’t come close to President Reagan’s 66.20% in 1984).

On a related note, President Bush carried Monroe County (south of Detroit’s Wayne County) with 50.54%, the first time a Republican had done so since 1988. I think that Monroe’s blue-collar, socially conservative whites will move even more strongly towards McCain (or, more to the point, away from Obama) and perhaps may even give the GOP presidential candidate his first 60% score in the county since Warren G. Harding in 1920 (!).