See post 75, we already win the Evangelical vote with almost 80%, in fact our second largest denomination, the Southern Baptists voted 80% for McCain in 2008, when our largest denomination, Catholic, was voting 54% for Obama.
It is the Catholic vote that conservatives need to figure out how to win.
We should have 99.9% of the evangelicals, not 80%. And more of them ought to be registered voters, because they can’t vote for a Republican candidate if they can’t vote at all.
Some “Catholyks” are just a group designated by polling companies and aren’t really observant Catholic—kind of like secular Jews, who also don’t vote on religious or ethical considerations. You are never going to win them.
Other Catholics are observant, but they’re super-libs from the ‘70s. They’re not available to us either.
Of the real, active, observant Catholics, the ones who are actually in the church, over 50% did go to Romney. But I agree that there, too, the number ought to be approaching 100%, and that outreach is necessary.
At our Catholic parish, the priests came down very hard on the congregation about this election. They are not extremely conservative in this area—hey, I’m in Communist-held Maryland!—but they were tough and outspoken about this. They read statements from the archbishop, they explained that abortion is a non-negotiable point, that there are no gray areas about this, and that it’s not ethical to vote for a great evil like abortion so that people can get a lesser good, like the idea free healthcare or whatever. It was possible to see how uncomfortable/irritated some members of the parish were when they heard this, and how pleased others were (like me).