NEWS STORY: Campaigns Reach Out to Catholics, Especially in Battleground States

c. 2004 Religion News Service (UNDATED) In a final push to reach undecided voters, both parties are wooing Roman Catholics in battleground states, but critics say aggressive tactics have crossed a sacred line. Republicans have enlisted 53,000 “Catholic team leaders” as political emissaries to Catholic “friends, families and congregants,” said Tara Hall, a spokeswoman for […]

c. 2004 Religion News Service

(UNDATED) In a final push to reach undecided voters, both parties are wooing Roman Catholics in battleground states, but critics say aggressive tactics have crossed a sacred line.

Republicans have enlisted 53,000 “Catholic team leaders” as political emissaries to Catholic “friends, families and congregants,” said Tara Hall, a spokeswoman for the Republican National Committee. The RNC has also launched a Web site (http://www.kerrywrongforcatholics.com) alleging that Kerry departs from the church’s social teachings.


The Washington-based Interfaith Alliance has attacked the effort, along with its Mormon counterpart (http://www.kerrywrongformormons.com), as “redefining religion from a perspective of partisan politics.”

“Political parties and campaigns should learn to keep out of the internal affairs of religious institutions,” said Interfaith Alliance President Welton Gaddy in a statement.

For its part, the Democratic National Committee has signed up a Roman Catholic strategist, Alexia Kelley, to lead a new division of religious outreach. On the Web, an unofficial site (http://www.catholicsforkerry.net) aims to answer GOP attacks.

And in largely Catholic neighborhoods, volunteers are holding “prayer potluck dinners” and Catholic-minded service projects to win support for Kerry-Edwards, whom they tout as the better choice to drive what Kelley terms “the Catholic social vision.”

In battleground states with narrow margins such as Ohio, Michigan and Pennsylvania, Catholics make up one-quarter to one-third of the population. What’s more, Catholics over the past 30 years have proven willing to vote for either party. Since 1972, whoever has won among Catholic voters has won the presidency, with one notable exception. In 2000, Al Gore won among Catholics by 2 percentage points, according to the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life.

This year, Catholics are expected to cast some 30 million votes Nov. 2, according to scholars’ projections.

“This is the key religious swing vote, right here,” said Luis Lugo of the Washington-based Pew Forum. “So it’s no wonder both campaigns are bending over backward to win them over.”


A survey released Wednesday (Sept. 28) from the Pew Research Center for People & the Press show Bush ahead among Catholics, but Kerry chipping away at his lead. Bush had 46 percent and Kerry 41 percent.

But Kerry appeared to be making considerable progress among white Catholics, the largest racial category. In a Sept. 8-10 poll by Pew, just after the Republican convention, Kerry had trailed by 21 percentage points. But that gap narrowed to 10 points in the latest poll.

Historically, Catholics have voted Democratic. It’s a political legacy dating back to early support for the labor movement and opportunities created under Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s New Deal.

But shortly after the 1960 election of John F. Kennedy, the only Catholic president in U.S. history, Catholics began flirting with the GOP in increasing numbers. By 1988, Catholics were evenly divided between the parties, and their votes remain up for grabs today.

In this environment, experts on Catholic voting patterns say each side enjoys advantages with certain groups of Catholics. Pew research suggests Republicans appeal to churchgoing, or traditionalist, Catholics by a ratio of almost 2 to 1, while Democrats do better with non-churchgoers. The GOP also attracts men in their young adult and middle-aged years, according to a study published this year by scholars David Leege and Paul Mueller. Democrats, they found, do better with young adult and middle-aged women.

Neither campaign is conceding any Catholic ground. Case in point: the Democrats’ bid to be the “pro-life” party, insofar as “pro-life” means expanding health insurance coverage and other measures to help those struggling most.


“Pro-life is a larger spectrum of concerns” than just reproductive issues, Kelley said. “We are called to deal with the totality of life … (but) Bush is leaving the poor and the jobless and the sick behind.”

Republicans seem equally convinced that Catholics could be their ticket to victory, though they emphasize a different side of what “pro-life” could mean. For them, the emphasis falls on restricting abortion practices, banning gay marriage and supporting public dollars for faith-based initiatives, such as Catholic Charities.

“We know the trend among Catholics is strong toward the president,” said Wall, the RNC spokeswoman. “Our message resonates with all Catholic voters.”

Catholics who vote Republican tend to do so when they assign primary importance to cultural issues, such as abortion, but whether those issues will drive this year’s vote remains a big unknown, according to Matthew Streb, a Loyola Marymount University political scientist.

“If this election comes down to cultural issues, (Kerry) is going to be in trouble with the Catholic vote,” Streb said. But if concerns for plight of the uninsured and the jobless become paramount, Streb said, Kerry is apt to win among Catholics.

(OPTIONAL TRIM FOLLOWS)

To make this year’s mix even less predictable, wild card issues have entered the field. Kerry may have seemed in trouble with Catholics when some Catholic church leaders proposed to deny Communion to him and others who support abortion rights.


Yet an August Pew poll found the flap may have made Catholics sympathetic toward Kerry. Among respondents, 72 percent of Catholics considered a church censure “improper.”

The war in Iraq is another new issue, one where Catholics don’t necessarily line up with church leaders, said John Green, a national expert on religion and politics and the director of the Bliss Institute at the University of Akron in Ohio.

Though Catholic leaders from Pope John Paul II on down have denounced the Iraq war as unjustified, Green said he expects rank-and-file Catholics to weigh the war’s merits and demerits for themselves. And unlike most of the nation, some who see strengths in both parties might still be making up their minds.

“From a campaign’s point of view, this is a golden opportunity,” Green said. “There are a lot of Catholic votes that are open to persuasion.”

MO/PH END MACDONALD

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