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Catholic voters target of aggressive push |
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A group of conservative Catholics led by a former George W. Bush campaign staffer is engaging in a highly-targeted effort to turn out regular Mass attendees in swing states on Election Day. The most aggressive efforts are being waged in Ohio, where organizer Leonard Leo — the former Catholic outreach director for the 2004 George W. Bush campaign — and a group called The Catholic Association is trying to move the needle toward Mitt Romney. Catholics as a voting demographic tend to be a bellwether group in a presidential campaign and are key to whether President Barack Obama or Mitt Romney wins three weeks from now. (Also on POLITICO: Inside the campaign: How Mitt preps) But Leo, who Bush appointed to the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom and is on the board of The Catholic Association, argues those who regularly attend Mass are more likely to swing to the right and are motivated by concern that the church is being adversely affected by the Obama administration.
“This is an administration that publicly makes a distinction between freedom of worship and freedom of religion and has preferred the former over the latter,” Leo said. “In other words, it’s perfectly fine for you go to go church, it’s perfectly fine for you to pray in that pew, but keep it in the pew, keep it in the church house, we don’t need religion to be out there in the public square.” Using voting rolls, consumer data and previously compiled lists, the group is targeting about 6 million Catholic voters in battleground states who regularly attend Mass and are likely to be swing voters, a fraction of the 57.2 million Catholics the 2008 American Religious Identification Survey estimated to live in the country. (Also on POLITICO: The 3 states that may decide the election) Polls find Romney faring slightly better than President Obama among Catholics; he leads 47 to 45 percent, according to the most recent POLITICO/George Washington University Battleground Poll. But when it comes to “active Catholics” — the subset Leo’s group is seeking — the same poll found Romney ahead 59 percent to 36 percent. In 2008, Obama won 54 percent of Catholics nationally, compared to John McCain who took 45 percent. This was a shift from 2004, when Bush won 52 percent of the Catholic vote, compared to John Kerry, who despite being a Catholic only won 47 percent. (Also on POLITICO: The latest on 2012 swing states) That makes connecting with Catholics an issue of trying to get out the voter versus winning them over completely, Leo said. For those voters his group identified in Ohio, where 26 percent of likely voters identified as Catholic according to an NBC/Wall Street Journal/Marist poll, Leo estimates they will be contacted between five and six times before Election Day. The group isn’t spending big dollars on radio or television advertisements, which Leo said are unnecessary when dealing with such a targeted population. Instead, his group is working both old fashioned avenues and the latest technology. The 501(c) 4 is a lobbying group that has collected private donations and got its start pushing for legislation on Capitol Hill. It has also decided to delve into this year’s election.
The group has a field organizer based in Ohio who is working to recruit various Catholic groups, as well as other religious organizations of the same mind to make phone calls. They are also mobilizing student groups, relying heavily on attendees of Franciscan University of Steubenville, a Catholic college in eastern Ohio. In the next month, the campaign plans to “door knock” at every Catholic church in Ohio, distributing a “score card” that outlines their arguments against Obama, said Leo, who is the executive director of the Federalist Society, although the group has no ties to The Catholic Association’s effort. The card gives Romney an “A” while scoring Obama as a “Fail,” and highlights the GOP nominee’s work as governor of Massachusetts to prevent efforts to require Catholic Charities to let gay couples adopt, his anti-abortion rights position and several statements he’s made defending religious freedom. The scorecard also criticizes Obama for the original Health and Human Services contraceptive mandate, supporting abortion rights and using the term “freedom of worship” instead of a “freedom of religion.” The organization has also turned to the Internet, using specifically tailored web ads and Facebook — a platform that allows advertising based on users self-identified location, religion and political affiliation. The group is also using Facebook to target specific users, not just those who are part of a group and in a specific location, to try to sway their vote. The organization isn’t affiliated with the Catholic Church and is being sponsored through “donors who care about the state of our country,” Leo said. And Leo thinks his effort has a winning issue: religious liberty focusing mainly on the mandate in the Affordable Care Act that employers cover contraceptives in their insurance plans. The requirement received strong pushback particularly from Catholic Church that argued their hospitals, churches and other organizations shouldn’t be required to cover the medications in opposition to the religious philosophies. The White House relented some and instead of requiring the employer to cover contraceptives, now requires the insurance providers to cover the medications, a distinction that Catholic leaders have instead said is more semantics than a response to their concerns. The issue got renewed attention in Thursday night’s vice presidential debate when Vice President Joe Biden and challenger Paul Ryan, both Catholics, were asked how their religion affected their views on abortion. Calling the administration’s change “a distinction without a difference,” Ryan attacked the Obama administration for including the requirement in the health care law. “Look at what they’re doing through Obamacare with respect to assaulting the religious liberties of this country,” Ryan said. “They’re infringing upon our first freedom, the freedom of religion, by infringing on Catholic charities, Catholic churches, Catholic hospitals.” The Obama campaign dismisses that the changes are an infringement on religious liberty and claim instead it’s a balance of religious and women’s rights.
“Standing up for women’s health and respecting religious liberties are not mutually exclusive. As it stands no religious institution will have to refer, provide, or pay for contraception,” an Obama campaign official said. Catholics can be reached on the same issues as evangelical voters, but polling finds targeting them requires using different language, Leo said. Instead of the more fire-and-brimstone language that is more common in evangelical churches, Catholics prefer more subtle and a less “edgy” tone, Leo said. But he thinks Catholics who regularly attend mass will be upset by what he calls an attack on religious liberties. “This is not simply about the [Health and Human Services] contraceptive mandate, this is about the Obama administration yanking grant money to Catholic Charities, the best private agency in the country to deal with human trafficking,” Leo said. “This is about an administration that has ignored, religious Christian minority communities throughout North Africa and the Middle East, to the peril for four years.” And Leo dismisses any concerns that Catholics might be apprehensive about voting for Romney, who is a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. “Mitt Romney is a member of a religious minority community, he actually understands quite well the way in which the state can threaten a religious minority because he happens to belong to one,” Leo said. “Catholics understand that concept extraordinarily well.” Republicans have a mixed history of appealing directly to Catholic voters, Leo said. In 2000 and 2004, Bush’s campaign dedicated resources to targeting Catholic voters, an operation that Leo headed. In 2000, the campaigns addressed the nation’s “moral decline” during the Clinton presidency and Catholics were drawn to Bush’s discussion of improving the nation’s standards, Leo said. In 2004, abortion became a campaign issue, partly because John Kerry favored legal abortion despite being a Catholic. But in 2008, religious-driven policy issues fell of the map as both campaign focused solely on economic issues. The same year the Republican National Committee decided not to target identity groups, Leo said. So he along with other interested conservative Catholics decided to “privatize” the effort and operate outside the confines of party operations, Leo said. Romney’s campaign does have a Catholic outreach arm this year, but the effort got started late and is a small part of the campaigns operation, Leo said. The campaign has identified Catholic leaders and is trying to mobilize volunteers, said Joshua Baca, the coalitions director for the Romney campaign. It is concentrating its Catholic voter operations in Ohio and Pennsylvania and trying to recruit volunteers from the church ranks. “The addition of Paul Ryan to the ticket has been a tremendous asset,” Baca said. Obama’s campaign is making its own efforts to mobilize Catholic voters toward their side and then to the polls. The Obama campaign has assembled groups of Catholic leaders, both nationally and those who are well-known in states. The campaign had debate-watching parties that targeted Catholics and is trying to ensure those groups are motivated. “There is just tremendous enthusiasm and a real strong desire to make sure the Catholic support for the president is as strong as 2008,” said Broderick Johnson, a senior Obama adviser who overseas Catholic outreach. “In many events in the state of Ohio that we had recently, the acceptance that we’re getting, the attendance that we’re getting are really exceeding our expectations.”
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