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.
Well gee, a compilation of many of the more 'vocal' posters around here sounded like this:
He wants Hillary to win! He wants Pelosi as speaker! He wants to turn it over to the Dems! I can't believe he said that! I've known he was a BircherBuchananiteDUTrollDemInfiltratorMobyStormfronter all along! Are you kidding me! Reagan hardly ever balanced the budget! Reagan didn't control the border! Reagan gave amnesty to millions of illegal aliens too! You can bet Hillary won't control the borders or balance the budget!! You can bet Pelosi won't control the borders or balance the budget! We're at war! He's supporting the terrorists!! He wants to turn it all over to the Democrats!!! When campaigning, President Bush never said that he wanted absolute control of the border! He's unappeasable! What a malcontent!! He's a racistxenophobantihispanicnazibigot who hates Mexicans!!! He's a secret member of Stormfront!!! He wants to turn it all over to the Democrats!!!!!! He's never been a real conservative!!! He hates Bush!! He wouldn't say any of this if he wasn't a Bush basher!!! He hates Republicans too!!! What does he want, for everyone to vote third party!!?!! Shut up, Go away!!! We don't need your support anyway!! We don't need the votes of the so-called "conservatives" that you're talking about because they're just a bunch of moronic, right-wing, extremist, fringe whacko, malcontent, unappeasable, fake conservative, democrat loving, stupid hicks who want Hillary for President and Pelosi for speaker!!! They probably never voted for Republicans in the first place! They're just Democrats trying to ruin our chances! The polls are lying!!! Look at their sign up date, anything after mine is suspect. The site has been infiltrated by BircherBuchananiteDUTrollDemInfiltratorMobyStormfronterracistxenophobantihispanicnazibigots and all they do is whine and bitchbithchbitchbitchbitch all the time.
I can't imagine why they weren't unable to sway them to see the light.
bump for later
Catholics still skew somwhat more blue collar than Protestants, especially in the Midwest. The GOPs rise to the majority, especially as seen in the 94 mid terms, was the fact they gained so heavily among this group. While they lean socially conservative, and in fact, at times reactionary on social issues, they are populist in economic issues, and have been among the most impacted by WSJ economic policies such as unrestricted "free" trade and near unlimited immigration, they have been on the front lines in terms of their employment and also in terms of the changes in their once stable neighborhoods. They are fed up and the GOP fared badly among this group. Probaqbly the bulk of the drop in support of white males came from this group.
If the GOP hopes to regain a majority, it needs to go in a more populist direction. The WSJ has a choice, do they compromise a little on "free" trade and immigration, while still having low taxes and fewer regulations,or do they still want to be sbsolute and "pure" while at the same time seeing a Democratic congress and possibly a Democratic president raise their taxes and increase regulation like never before.
The Repubs are gonna have to find a way to force votes on some of these critical social issues, just to see if these "new" Demo-lib-conservatives REALLY put their money where their slippery mouths are.
That doesn't sound quite right does it?
Substitute 'were unable' or 'weren't able' in there somewhere. LOL!
This is the kind of thing that gives Catholics a bad name.
Rush was mentioning how the dems did that TO us this year. Several key states had minimum wage referendums, drawing out a slight increase in dem voters, as we've done with gay marriage and concealed carry in the past.
But one thing I'm gonna harp on still is that the elections this year were very close. We did lose some ground, but not as much as the DBM wants folks to now believe.
Take it from one who knows, the President was never popular among many conservatives, but he was the "lesser of two evils." The man was opposed by Al Gore and John Kerry. What choice did any truly thoughtful, rational, conservative human being have -- especially after the Perot fiasco?
I wish people who criticize Catholics knew what they were talking about.
Sounds great--Alabama is my home state--raised in St. James in Gadsden. My folks are doing well after retirement and moved to Fairhope--I know it's a decision as any church that is an individual one--and one cannot let the actions of a few impact such an important element in life--the most important. God speed to you and yours and may you enjoy a great, prosperous and sweet life. Andy
How can a Jewish voter support ANY democrat!? The democrats are for abortion, a holocaust of the unborn.
Why does this surprise you, when the same pattern shows up so consistently?
Why all hot and bothered from a survey of "CINOs" Many of of these 67 "catholics" don't even go to mass. They consider themselves "catholic by birth", which is certainly NOT possible in true Catholicism.
True. So when the RINO contingent demands that the Republican Party go "moderate" on social issues, many social conservatives (Catholic and otherwise) no longer have any common-ground reason to vote Republican.
The Republican Party is more supportive in the long run of Israel. I suspect many American Jews are like most Liberals; they're uncomfortable with ordinary Americans and look down on them. That's a Liberal thing, I believe. A lot of Liberal Catholics are the same way.
Many of them are Catholic by love and loyalty, not by will or choice. They would love for the Vatican to go gay-commie-leftist any old day.
In fact, they literally pray for that to happen someday (rather than just up and leave themselves, like they probably should).
[How can a Jewish voter support ANY democrat!? The democrats are for abortion, a holocaust of the unborn.]
Even more relevant, Democrats do not support Israel in the same way that the Republicans do, not even close.
I believe that religious Jews would tend to vote Republican, but secular Jews would vote Democratic as has been the historical demographic.
Liberal democrats are the de facto national socialists in this country. Not Nazis, of course, but they potentially contain the next waiting storm. However Jews can tame this threat may be to their benefit, and one good way is by having a stake in their politics.
The worst thing they could do is not to participate, since they were always getting banned from things traditionally and then being shut out of the process.
it's still disturbing to see so many catholics voting for abortion... I don't know how you can call that catholic... kind of like calling the Nazies christian.
Catholics are just following the examples set by our Bishops and Cardinals who support the Pro Abortion politicians like Kerry, Kennedy, Pelosi, Biden, Leahey, Mikulski, Derbin, Murray, Menendez, Salazaar, Casey Jr..
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