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Articles: Bush, Kerry fight to win Catholics

Posted by admin on Thursday, June 17, 2004 - 08:25 AM

When President George W. Bush visits Rome today, he'll have an audience with Pope John Paul II. But the real audience will be at home, where Bush is battling Democratic Sen. John Kerry for the votes of American Catholics.
Three factors combine to make Catholics a potentially pivotal bloc in the 2004 elections: They're the country's largest religious denomination, with 65 million members; they're a major presence in election-battleground states such as Ohio and Pennsylvania, and they're split evenly between Democrats and Republicans, the only denomination so closely divided. Pulling them to the left are economic concerns that have long bound blue-collar, ethnic, big-city Catholics to the Democratic Party. Pulling them to the right are concerns over such social issues as abortion and same-sex marriage that draw culturally conservative Catholics to Republicans. Adding to the drama is the presence of a Catholic candidate -- Kerry of Massachusetts -- whose support for abortion rights angers conservative Catholics and at least some bishops. This will be only the third time in history that a major party will nominate a Catholic; Democrats led the way with Al Smith in 1928 and John F. Kennedy in 1960. Unlike Smith and Kennedy, Kerry can't count on unified support from U.S. Catholics. "Catholics are torn between the two parties. Neither party fits their religious and ethical views entirely," said Clyde Wilcox, a political scientist at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C., who has studied Catholics' voting patterns. For generations, Catholics were dependably Democratic. Arriving from Europe, Catholic immigrants found factory jobs and were welcomed by their church, labor unions and the Democratic Party in New York, Philadelphia, Cleveland and Chicago. That started to change with America's cultural divisions of the 1960s and accelerated in 1973, when states were prevented from outlawing abortions. Republican Ronald Reagan appealed to culturally conservative blue-collar Catholics in 1980, converting many to his party. At the same time, the Catholic Church in America, like the country, experienced sweeping demographic and economic changes that continue today. While climbing the economic ladder, moving to the suburbs and leaving the factory and union behind, many Catholics also left the Democratic Party. By 2000, when about 27 million Catholics voted, the partisan division among them was clear, and Republicans had a slight edge. Today, U.S. Catholic registered voters prefer Bush over Kerry, 48 percent to 41 percent, according to a survey by Quinnipiac University in Connecticut. The May 18-24 survey of 1,160 people had a margin of error of plus or minus 2.9 percentage points. In Ohio, which is expected to be a key battleground in November, Catholics also prefer Bush over Kerry, 42.5 percent to 41.4 percent, according to a recent survey by Mason-Dixon, a Washington-based polling firm. By comparison, Protestants prefer Bush nearly 2-1, while Jews and voters of other religions prefer Kerry by 2-1. That May 20-25 poll of 1,500 voters had a margin of error of plus or minus 2.6 percentage points. Bush aides will have those Catholics in mind when the president and his wife, Laura, meet briefly today with the pope. Though the pope opposed Bush's decision to invade Iraq, photos of Bush beside the pontiff could reinforce the public's image of the president as a pious man. Kerry, a former altar boy who has said he personally opposes abortion, supports abortion rights, though he said recently that he might appoint anti-abortion judges to the federal bench if that wouldn't put them in a position to overturn the constitutional right to an abortion. Several U.S. Catholic bishops have said Kerry should be denied communion because he supports abortion rights. Judie Brown, the president of the American Life League, a Virginia-based group of anti-abortion Catholics, said the bishops weren't trying to tell people how to vote, but rather how to be good Catholics. Sen. Richard Durbin, D-Ill., released a study this week showing how often the Senate's 24 Catholics side with the Catholic bishops on a range of issues. Kerry topped the list, siding with the bishops more than 60 percent of the time in the last two years.

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