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Capturing the Catholic vote
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The Democrat who wins Pennsylvania will have to court the Catholic vote. According to AP, Pennsylvania’s 3.8 million Catholics make up 30 percent of the state’s population. So far, Clinton has a hefty 70-24% lead among Pennsylvania Catholics.
Clinton has always had an edge among Catholic voters. She handily won the Catholic vote in Ohio and Texas, and according to a recent Gallup poll she still leads among Catholics by almost 20 percentage points. Among white Catholics, she gets 57% to Obama’s 34%. Among nonwhite Catholics – mostly composed of Hispanics – she leads 53% to 42%.
Why is Hillary winning the Catholic vote from Obama?
The Wall Street Journal says Catholics liked Clinton’s husband and approve of her emphasis on universal health care. Clinton also has supporters among white working-class voters and Hispanics, traditionally Catholic voters.
In an interview with God-o-Meter, Catholic Republican and Obama endorser Doug Kmiec speculated that Catholics support Hillary because Obama voted against the Infant Protection Act. Michael Sean Winters says Clinton could gain points with Catholics by positioning herself as a more moderate candidate on the abortion issue. Obama could do the same to persuade pro-life Catholics like Kmiec, who says trying to change abortion law is “a bit of a fool’s game,” and pro-lifers should instead focus on changing “the heart of the individual person and the attitude of the larger culture.”
The racial divide matters, too. Kmiec notes that Hispanics are heavily Catholic and divided from African Americans. On Artvoice.com, former Democratic consultant Bruce Fisher sees a divide between white Catholics and black Protestants. The white Protestant evangelical religious experience — “boisterous, enthusiastic, demonstrative” — is familiar to most Africans Americans but “alien, uncomfortable and more than a little bit threatening to Catholics.”
InsideCatholic.com editor Deal W. Hudson advises Obama to use pro-life Catholic supporters like Timothy Roemer and to find common ground with social conservatives on issues like illegal immigration and faith-based initiatives. It’s advice Obama should heed, especially if he and John McCain end up vying for the support of a voter group that makes up 25% of the general electorate.
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Topic: Campaign 2008, Front Page, The Nation |  |
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Don?t blame racism
‘pro-lifers should instead focus on changing “the heart of the individual person and the attitude of the larger culture.” ‘
Ahh, the “don’t like slavery? don’t own one” gambit.
I’m still baffled by how Clinton pulls off an image of less radical than Obama on abortion. Both are very bad.
KRM, we wouldnt ever had an abolitionist movemt and a Civil War to liberate captive slaves unless the hearts of lots and lots of individuals had changed on that topic.
Is that not what we need on abortion? A nation’s laws are the very last thing that normally changes after such alluded to above heart changes.
And what exactly is your avatar above??
Sawgunner has it right.
Sawgunner does have it right. But to change the hearts of people means the issue has to be kept in the public mind, not just preached “to the choir” on a Sunday morning in the churches. You will also recall that there were those right from the beginning of the country who opposed slavery but compromised to get the country going. If we compromise by not continuing to deliver the message that life is sacred and expose the truth about the effects of abortion (not just on the child), the result will be far more devastating than the Civil War. A country can’t cavalierly kill its next generation for convenience and not pay a price.
The heart of the individual person and the attitude of the larger culture is already against abortion. Abortion is murder and is therefore wrong agrees the majority of Americans. The courts have ruled against the will of the people in Roe v. Wade (and others), which is why we need pro-life politicians - particularly as president.
Note to Ms. Harris: To report what the Catholic Church teaches, please access one of the many available bishops and cardinals in the magisterium, rather than this self-proclaimed “Catholic Republican” who does not accurately depict the faith he claims to represent.
Don’t change laws, change hearts? That is not how it works. Too many people form their morality and sense of right and wrong from what is legal and illegal. Look at abortion: prior to abortion being legal throughout the country, the number of abortions was much, much, lower than it is now. With legality came a sense that abortion is morally acceptable. Apply the same understanding to homosexuality and other issues. If abortion was illegal, that in itself would change innumerable hearts.
Look at it another way. There would be no need for any laws if all hearts were changed. No one would commit murder or rape or steal from an employer, if all hearts were changed. But there is a need for laws, and we do not wait until all hearts are changed to attempt to protect innocent victims of violence and theft.
Essentially, laws against abortion are laws to protect the innocent victims - unborn child and oftentimes the mother as well. We need to confront this issue head on and change the law: for 35 years, we have always found an excuse or something else “more important”, the economy, health care, etc. to divert our attention.
A new Supreme Court hangs in the balance. One more vote and Roe v. Wade will be toast. That is what this election is about. The next president will seal this issue for a long, long time. Do the right thing first, protect the first right from which all other rights flow, the right to life, and then we will have the moral competency to address the other, lesser issue.
Look at abortion: prior to abortion being legal throughout the country, the number of abortions was much, much, lower than it is now. With legality came a sense that abortion is morally acceptable.
With legality comes the ability to have the procedure without risking going to jail; and to have it in a safe, clean medical facility.
I think you’re missing the point in saying there would be no need for laws if all hearts were changed. The point Sawgunner made, and with which I agree, is that social change on these controversial matters follows the swell of public opnion.
Murder, rape and stealing from your employer — your examples — are all things that almost everybody agrees should not be allowed, and so it’s not controversial at all to set up the legal ins and outs of what the state can do to punish you if you do them.
Abortion is not so simple. I think the majority of people have conflicting feelings about it, neither wanting it to run rampant nor being quite willing to ban it altogether.
One point is that laws protect the victims.
A second point is that the “social change” on abortion came after the laws were changed to permit abortion. The change in law preceded the swell of public opinion in favor of abortion. Prior to the Supreme Court decision, the hearts of most in the nation saw abortion as an evil. When the law was changed, the hearts were unfortunately changed as well, to the tune of 37,000 abortions per day in the U.S.
The same thing is happening in the area of homosexual rights. Homosexuals seek laws to legitimize their actions and relationships, to change the hearts of the nation to believe that homosexuality is morally acceptable.
Abortions were legal in some states prior to Roe v. Wade. Those who wanted abortions could travel to those states, without fear of jail. The comment about “safe, clean medical facility” is not necessarily accurate even today, if one reads the literature.
Finally, laws are passed to ensure the protection of rights, and to protect innocent victims.
It is not anticipated that overturning Roe v. Wade would outlaw abortion: what likely would happen, is that the issue would return to the state legislatures, where the conflicting feelings of the people can be hashed out in a democratic forum and laws could be fashioned accordingly. Roe v. Wade was nondemocratic judicial fiat. Both Hillary and Obama are opposed to letting the people decide what limits, if any, they want on abortion.
What Hillary Clinton did in 1999 when New York City’s Roman Catholics were outraged and asked her to intervene against the hateful artform (paid for by tax money) that was aimed against their religion? Museum of Modern Art in Brooklyn exhibition displayed Virgin Mary covered in elephant dung and surrounded by indecent images. Museum where this has happened was supported (back then) by our tax dollars.
So Hillary listened to the Roman Catholic concerns, Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights called the Virgin Mary painting “Catholic-bashing garbage”, but she ignored them, and let it go in the name of free speech. White House Press Correspondent Joe Lockhart told the media that President Clinton supports his wife’s position regarding the exhibit. If this art happened to target any other religion while being funded by the tax payers money at the same time, there would be a definite uproar.
September 26th, 1999-
Catholic Cardinal John O’ Connor tells his congregation at St. Patrick’s Cathedral that he is “saddened by what appears to be an attack not only on our blessed mother …but one must ask if it is not an attack on religion itself and in a special way on the Catholic Church.” He also supports “city officials” in opposition to the exhibit.
September 27th, 1999-
Hillary Rodham Clinton, who is running for the U.S. Senate against Guliani, states that, “I share the feeling that I know many New Yorkers have that there are parts of this exhibit that would be deeply offensive… I would not go to see this exhibit” but criticizes Mayor Guliani in saying that “it is not appropriate to penalize and punish an institution such as the Brooklyn Museum.”
Reuters reported on Oct. 2nd 1999: - Roman Catholics sang hymns and handed out vomit bags Saturday to protest an art show with a picture of the Virgin Mary, her right breast made of elephant dung, while animal rights activists objected to art made of sliced up animals.
CBS reported: in this evening’s news, while broacasting Hillary’s words about not shutting down a whole museum over it, showed the picture at the center of the debate. An African-American or African woman is depicted as the Madonna. Then, surrounding her, there are shelacked splatters of elephant dung, and x-rated pictures.
I am really confused about her need for the Roman Catholics votes.