I guess they missed the memo:
Posted on 11/11/2006 1:41:23 PM PST by Sabramerican
Catholic Vote Swings Democratic in Midterm Elections By Jeff Diamant Religion News Service
Catholics, who compose a massive 67 million-person slice of the electorate, favored Democrats in Tuesday's election by 55 percent to 45 percent, according to National Election Pool exit polls.
That's a marked difference from 2004, when President Bush, a Republican United Methodist, won 52 percent of the Catholic vote and Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., a Catholic, received 47 percent.
Catholic voting patterns varied by state, but the overall shift helped Democrats in several big states like Pennsylvania and Ohio, according to John Green, a senior fellow at Washington's Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life.
For much of the 20th century, American Catholics were loyal Democrats, but in recent elections their voting patterns have been largely indistinguishable from the general population.
And for the last quarter-century, conservative Catholics and white evangelicals have increasingly voted Republican, making opposition to abortion and same-sex marriage their top political issues.
Yet since the 2004 presidential election, liberal religious groups have worked to get the Catholic vote back to the Democratic Party, using the issues of poverty, health care and environmentalism as ways to get voters' attention. A liberal group called Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good credits those efforts for the shifts reflected in Tuesday's voting.
Green says the shift is harder to explain.
"It could be that many Catholics that had voted Republican in the past were not real happy with that vote," he said. "And it's entirely plausible that efforts by religious progressives did move some Catholics to vote Democratic."
For years, polls have shown that people who attend religious services at least once a week are more likely to vote Republican, and people who attend infrequently are more likely to vote for Democrats. Democrats did better this year with both groups than in 2004.
The Rev. Tony Campolo, a liberal evangelist and professor emeritus at Eastern University in Pennsylvania, says that since 2004, when Kerry was widely perceived as uncomfortable talking about his faith, Democratic candidates have tried harder to attract religious voters.
"Democrats have learned that when you want to speak to the religious community, you can't do it simply by saying `I went to church when I was a kid,' or quote a few Bible verses in your speech," Campolo said. "What you have to do," he said, is convince people who are religious that one's views "on things like torture, on things like war, on things like poverty, emerge out of your spiritual convictions."
White evangelicals, who have collectively voted Republican since the 1980s, had been widely expected to sit out the election because of anger over sex scandals and the war in Iraq. But polling indicates they voted in full force, and that Republicans came away with a healthy 70 percent of their votes, down only 8 percentage points from what they gave President Bush in 2004.
Jewish voters, longtime Democratic loyalists as a group, gave congressional Democrats nationwide 87 percent of their vote.
You are right.
Boy , did you ever hit it on the head!
I, too, believe that President Bush didn't listen to us very well (and I'm not sure how much influence his mom and dad - nice as they were- but - who were very liberal) had on his decisions!
And you are right - I believe also that a lot of the hostility toward President Bush was because of the person who "articulated" his message for him (or didn't do it very well - in this case!).
I'm talking about the huge difference it had made since President Bush got Tony Snow on board to speak for him!
McClellan was a nice guy - but did a terrible job!
And I believe during the time he represented the President - things REALLY got out of hand with the reporters - and consequently - they lost respect for the President on many things!
Too bad we we didn't get Tony to speak for him sooner!
Most of them said,"I am concerned for education." I continue to counter that life super cedes anything else.
I get blank stares everytime.
Relevant Radio, our Catholic Radio, and Father Frank Pavone, have done an outstanding job driving home the point that life should be the first and foremost issue Catholics should be looking at. Apparently many are not listening.
I don't understand how any thinking Catholic can support any candidate that is pro-choice. It's beyond my comprehension.
Pope John Paul, and now Pope Benedict are explicit in their firm teachings on voting pro-life. Why don't these Catholics get it?
Unfortunately too many Catholics are choosing to ignore this.
If they were truly concerned for education, they'd be taking to the streets to demand vouchers.
The bigger problem is that people, not just Catholics, are just ignorant. They actually believe that government helps. I can understand this from the last few old dears who remember the Great Depression (although even then, it's a fiction), but from people my own age, it's really distressing.
I will never understand this... both my mom and m-i-l are RATS and proudly vote for the democrat candidates! It drives me crazy.
Seems to me that if there are RINOs there must also be CINOs.
I could understand this years ago, when there wasn't alot of conervative information within the media, but with Rush, Hannity, Ingraham, FOX NEWS, Catholic Radio out there, it becomes more disturbing to see the ignorance that continues.
I was handed a voting brochure by the NEA, before the election, and all of the endorsements that I saw were democrats. (I threw it away...) But the most galling thing is that the fellow who gave it to me is a former Marine.
"The fault lies with the "teach the Republican's a lesson" conservative and no show voters."
______________________________
Shouldn't the blame rest with the congressional Pubs.
what difference does education make if the child is already dead???
These people are imbeciles!
Yep... Even without party affiliation, how can they ignore the preservation of life?
It's one of the basic tenants of our faith.
No you don't.
When will the excommunication of "pro-choice" Catholic politicians begin?
Until it does, will most take the RC opposition to abortion seriously???
I guess they missed the memo:
Republicans should be the party of Baseball, Mom and Apple Pie.
See the link in #2.
It's one thing to lose Catholics, Jews, Latinos, etc, but when you lose MOM...
No one polled but I bet Baseball was also lost.
And reading so many of the post election posts here, with the pre-election delusions continuing unabated, Apple Pie may also go stale in 2008.
Unfortunately it's the same in many Christian denominations...haphazard individual pronouncements not based on Christian and Biblical commandments but on humanistic secular preferences.
Relevant Radio (Catholic Radio) has really done a bang up job in really getting the message out about the faith should not be compromised in regards to pro-life.
Too many are not listening!
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