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.
Too bad they couldn't see past their own local guy and see just who would be in charge in the House and Senate under the Democrats. NONE of those folks will allow any tightening of restrictions on abortion, and will actively work to push legislation favorable to abortion every chance they get.
Wasn't Campolo the guy the Slickster was yuk-yuking it up with after Ron Brown's funeral (the infamous joking and laughing to tears video Rush used to play on his TV show)?
Coming back where? To the Catholic Church? Please don't confuse those goober Catholics who voted Democrat, with the Catholic Church, which is adamant in her stand against abortion, for marriage between one woman and one man, and with many other natural law issues.
Those voters might be happy with their decision because 'their guy' is pro-life, but they will have to live with the knowledge that their vote ADVANCED the culture of death in this country. Maybe they didn't think about that before they voted.
I agree and I pray for your church as well as mine (Greek Orthodox)!
There is only one way to win against an insurgency. That is to crush it with an iron fist. To pursue the insurgents relentlessly, to give them no shelter, no respite, no haven. This is how the British crushed Shinn Fein in the 1920s and it is still the textbook strategy for a counterinsurgency. Trouble is, we're too nice. When we kill civilians we take the blame. The HELL with that. Civilian deaths should be on the heads of the enemy that put them in harms way.
It's a real frickin' pickle. If we leave, Iraq will become an America-hating, terrorist haven again - a platform for terrorism. Our strategic objective in taking out Saddam was to eliminate that exact same threat. It shouldn't matter if they become a democracy, as long as they're not a threat to us.
I'm almost with Savage in suggesting we ought to let Saddam be back in charge if he agrees to work with us like we did in the old days. I'm sure he'd be amenable to any reasonable arrangement.
Unfortunately, they hear more about the Bishops' "teachings" than what the Pope has to say.
For example, the "Church" doesn not consider support for the death penalty sinful. She recognizes that political entities, ie, nations, states, etc. must make their own laws. The Church tries, by catechesis, etc. to influence voters, politicians about the teachings of Jesus, and how they impact what we do on a daily basis. The American Bishops decided, on their own, to start saying that the death penalty should not be used, so many Catholics interpreted that as a "Church" teaching.
Same thing with support for the war. Many Bishops don't like the War in Iraq, heck, even John Paul II didn't like it, mainly because he was worried for the Chaldean Catholics and other Christian groups in the country. But the Pope never declared it an 'unjust' war, so folks who participated in it could do so with a clear conscience. Unfortunately, the American Bishops allied themselves with the 'peace movement', because they think we should be against all war, but the peaceniks are 'anti-war' only because it is America prosecuting the war.
An excellent summary of the situation. Thanks
Typical MSM trying to twist facts because they know many will read this, think Catholic Vote = Hispanic Vote.
I'm not any happier with some of our leadership in DC than the next person, but if you don't like something then change it in the primary and suck it up in the general election, lessons are for gradeschool.
Is that any different than the Islamists in this country voting DNC vs RNS, there is no group more conservative than followers of Islam -- the things they despise about our country is what has been brought about in our society by liberals.
The Bible warns us about these people. They have friendship with the world.
I think so.
Yes, you are right. Catholics tend to favor government social programs for the disadvantaged. And they are egged on by recurrent statements from the bishops' conference.
To tell the truth, I think the Catholic hierarchy is mistaken in taking this route. Government welfare is incredibly wasteful and counterproductive. It would be far better to lower taxes and to do more for the poor through private and Church-related charities, as used to be the case.
It made some sense when government consisted primarily of kings and nobles for these people to do more for the poor, but in our present system of government it really is counterproductive. And where government help is indicated, it would better come from state and local governments--the principle of subsidiarity.
I suppose something like Bush's "compassionate conservatism" may be necessary to make an appeal in the short run, but I would rather see American Catholics better educated. That won't happen, however, until the bishops are better educated.
No, I voted Republican in this last election, and so did most Freepers, so there's no use blaming us.
I'm not trying to say that I'm unhappy with Bush, I'm suggesting why some of his base was evidently unhappy.
Of course, much of it was biased media; but Bush needed to deal with that, and on many issues really never tried very hard to do it. Maybe if Tony Snow had been brought in earlier, things would have gone better.
You're right. Tony Campolo is well known as heretic and false teacher. And has been opposing Biblical doctrine for decades.
A true Catholic is anti-abortion. Anything else, and they are not really adhering to the Catholic faith. Just like so many who call themselves a certain religion and then support "choice".
"A true Catholic is anti-abortion."
Any true Christian, protestant, catholic or evangelical is anti-abortion and the pro-life message should be universal.
The pro-choice crowd is out of step with God. A just war and in matters of self-defense (against criminal action) is about the only legitimate taking of human-life in the Christian sense.
Thou shall not kill = murder
Who acted like it wasn't important? Just because we didn't take to the streets in protest doesn't mean it didn't concern us. It is important, but we know that we can't control what some religious zealot will do. All we can do is pray that Benedict will be protected from such people.
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