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Marsh: "Catholics" who vote for Obama, for instance, have abandoned Catholic values and Catholicism itself. They have instead, adopted the prevailing values of current American culture. In what sense are they "Catholic" then?

FWIW, I do not believe there is a "Catholic Vote". We've seen in the last couple elections that no matter what the leaders of this church do, or say, a majority in the 52-55% range will vote for the liberals. I think in the last election the RCC leadership was pretty clear that they did not support obama and it really didn't alter his vote totals. A better way to look at the "Catholic vote" is by breaking it down into different ethnic or economic groups. Their church leadership has had little or no influence over how their members vote.

Evangelical Christians are a clear example of a religious group that is solidly conservative even though most Black Americans are identified with Evangelical churches and they vote in the 90%+ area for the liberals. I suspect that part of the more conservative view is because of the belief in Sola Scriptura rather than tradition and organizational authority.

FWIW, I do not believe there is a "Catholic Vote". We've seen in the last couple elections that no matter what the leaders of this church do, or say, a majority in the 52-55% range will vote for the liberals. I think in the last election the RCC leadership was pretty clear that they did not support obama and it really didn't alter his vote totals. A better way to look at the "Catholic vote" is by breaking it down into different ethnic or economic groups. Their church leadership has had little or no influence over how their members vote.

And to drive that point home, here are two articles by Catholics which say the same thing - there is no "Catholic" vote:

They may call themselves Catholics, and they may even go to Mass, but when it comes to life choices they are virtually indistinguishable from everyone else in America. They don’t live radical Christianity out in any real sort of way. Their lives look just like the lives of their worldly neighbors. They don’t give any more than the average joe. They seem just as likely to divorce their spouses, have only 2.5 children as their non Catholic neighbors and they seem just as materialistic as everyone else. They attend church if they feel like it, but if there’s a weekend football game or the call of the beach house they’re just as likely to respond to that demand. When it comes to voting, they’ll vote as they wish according to wherever they get their opinions from–TV, the newspaper, the mass media–just like their neighbors. The one source they won’t consider when informing their vote is their priests and bishops.
-- from the thread Catholic Vote?
Are Catholics now so “successfully” assimilated into American political life that they are without political impact—that there really is no such thing as a “Catholic vote”? Unfortunately enough, Catholics are largely indistinguishable from non-Catholics and, despite a few pundits, no, there really is no “Catholic vote.” This obvious conclusion—clear enough from the fact that the vote for the winning candidates in the last national election was approximately the same for Catholics and non-Catholics—has serious current implications....
....Compare two lists:
According to the USCCB, the five most Catholic states, in population, are: Rhode Island, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York and Connecticut. According to the American Life League, the states with the most pro-life legislation (i.e., inhibiting abortion in various ways) are: Oklahoma, Louisiana, Pennsylvania, Arkansas and Texas.
This is a shocker. In short, there is no Catholic political impact in support of life in those states reportedly having the most Catholics. As Archbishop Charles Chaput of Philadelphia put it, after the 2008 election, “[w]e need to stop overcounting our numbers, our influence, our institutions, and our resources, because they are not real.”
-- from the thread The Mythical Catholic Vote: The Harmful Consequences of Political Assimilation

.....”Evangelical Christians are a clear example of a religious group that is solidly conservative”.....

I don’t think so.... for many of them are also being caught up in the worldly ways of this nation. Perhaps not to the degree catholics have gone..but realistically the Evangelical community is shifting...and it’s a deceptive shift.....

FWIW, I do not believe there is a "Catholic Vote". We've seen in the last couple elections that no matter what the leaders of this church do, or say, a majority in the 52-55% range will vote for the liberals.

After 150 years of knowing the Catholic vote, and it's devotion to the democrat party, we know that there is a "Catholic vote", it isn't wild and unpredictable, it is predictable and routine, just as the Protestant vote is, in the other direction.

The Catholic voters all belong to a single denomination, and their vote is predictable, because it is "the catholic vote".

FWIW, I do not believe there is a "Catholic Vote".

My point was that those who reject liberal Catholics as members are more Catholic than their church is in practice.

I suspect that part of the more conservative view is because of the belief in Sola Scriptura rather than tradition and organizational authority.

It is actually more due to the authority evangelicals give Scripture and the basically literal Scriptural "tradition" that goes along with it, versus the liberal scholarship seen in liberal Protestantism and R.Catholicism.

The Biblical literalist Catholic is as politically conservative as the Biblical literalist who is Evangelical (47.8%) or Mainline Protestant. (11.2%) - American Piety in the 21st Century, Baylor Institute for Studies of Religion http://www.baylor.edu/content/services/document.php/33304.pdf