We have been around this canard many times. Less than half of the self described Catholics vote and of those that do approximately half vote for each party. To try to characterize the 25% of Catholics voting for liberal policies and politicians as being representative of all or even most Catholics is completely disingenuous and mathematically flawed. Remember, there are lies, damned lies and statistics.
I would recommend that if the Republicans actually want to win elections again they run real conservative candidates on genuinely conservative platforms and begin to address all of Catholic teaching in those platforms. Better yet, go try to improve the voter turnout and fidelity of the entire self described Protestant population. If you accomplish that the Catholic vote won't matter anyway.
Peace be with you
Not canards, simple voting facts.
Look at the chart.
Well, either you actually portray a worse portrait of Catholics here...OR, you yourself are negatively contributing to your statement of "lies, damned lies and statistics."
Per this source, Voter Turnout, 54-62% of the Voting Eligible Population (which is distinct from VAP -- The Voting Age Population as not all adults are eligible to vote) turned out to vote over these past three Presidential elections. This % reflects BOTH registered AND unregistered voters.
You say that "less than half of the self described Catholics vote"...whereas in the presidential elections, 54% (2000), 60% (2004), 62% (2008), 58% (2012) of ALL eligible voters actually voted.
Since Catholics are approximately 1/4th of all registered voters (I saw one 2008 figure of 47 million...so it's probably higher than that now)...
...and if they turn out anywhere from 5-13% LESS than the national average [say your 49% or less you cite...vs. 54-62% of all]
...and this 5-13% INCLUDES those %-'bringer-down' Catholic votes ... meaning that % of DIFFERENCE/contrast with other voting groups actually grows to a 7-->16% difference between Catholic and non-Catholic voters (in terms of turn-out...if what you said is "so"...IOW, say 49% of Catholic VEP vs. 56-65% of non-Catholic VEP.
So, if you are right, Catholics are the sloppiest voters there are even counting upon them to turn out!
But I don't think you are right here. I think Catholics, by and large, turn out at almost the same rate other voters do...and I think you were simply trying to reduce as far as possible what the representational impact Catholic voters constitute...in order to dilute Catholic voter accountability (as much as you could possibly do)
Overall...the numbers speak for themselves:
In a population around 312 million...about 78 million of them (25%) are Catholic...which includes kids/minors, btw...
...and 47-48 million of them are old enough (& registered) to vote...
...and, at first glance, at least almost 30 million of them DID vote in the 2012 presidential election...among almost 125 million voters...
...and, taking a November 2012 CNN citation that 52% of Catholics voted for Obama...
...that means that since over HALF of Catholic voters voted for Obama, over 1 in 5 Obama votes (by my calculation, 22% of ALL Obama votes...about 14.5 million of Obama's 65.5 million votes) came from Catholics...
That's quite handy "pocket change" eh?