[Apologetics] Romney Fumbling the Catholic Vote?

Fri Sep 21 15:14:38 EDT 2012

http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2012/romney-fumbling-the-catholi
c-vote.html

Wednesday, 19 September 2012 
Romney: Fumbling the Catholic Vote?
<http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2012/romney-fumbling-the-cathol
ic-vote.html>  	 
<http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2012/romney-fumbling-the-cathol
ic-vote/print.html#>  	
By George J. Marlin    	
<http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2012/romney-fumbling-the-cathol
ic-vote/print.html#> 5
<http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2012/romney-fumbling-the-cathol
ic-vote/print.html#>  

Post-convention opinion surveys are indicating that Mitt Romney is
trailing in key battleground states particularly those with large
Catholic populations - Wisconsin, Ohio, Florida, Michigan, and
Pennsylvania.

A national pollster told me last week that Romney's root problem is that
he has not been able to close the deal with blue-collar Catholic voters.
The 6 percent undecided in the national polls are predominantly white
working-class Catholics who dislike Obama, but can't bring themselves to
cozy up to Romney. And without their support Romney can't capture the
270 electoral votes required to win in November.

A recent Gallup poll shows Catholics in the aggregate splitting 47-46 in
favor of the president. But that's an aggregate figure that doesn't tell
us very much.

The Catholic Association's National Catholic Election Survey conducted
by Magellan Strategies from August 19-21 digs a little deeper. On a
generic basis, 41 percent of Catholics support Romney, 49 percent Obama,
and 10 percent are undecided.  Among regular Church attendants - those
who go to Mass at least once a week - 47 percent intend to vote for
Romney, 45 percent for Obama, and 8 percent are undecided.  Cafeteria
Catholics break 53 percent for Obama, 36 percent Romney, and 11 percent
undecided.

Here are the Election Survey's findings on several key issues (each
percentage indicates agreement with the statement):

 Church
Attending
Catholics

   All
Catholics

Religious charities should not be forced
to pay for services they morally object to.

   72%        

66%

The Obama Administration has gone too far
in placing restrictions on religious freedoms
when implementing programs and policies.

    67%

57%

Our rights come from nature and God,
not government. 

    86%

72%

America's exploding federal debt hurts the
poor the most.

    71%

72%

Since Romney agrees with Catholics on these important issues, why aren't
they flocking to his camp?  A focus group conducted earlier this year by
McLaughlin & Associates of Blue Collar Catholics in Cleveland and
Pittsburgh gives some clues.

All the focus group participants voted for Obama in 2008 but were not
strongly tied to him and are "up for grabs in November."  The group was
evenly split between practicing and cafeteria Catholics.  None of them
had college degrees and their annual household incomes were under
$60,000.

These working class Catholics believe real unemployment is significantly
higher than Labor Department figures, and that federal spending and debt
is out of control. They had mixed feelings about Obamacare in general,
but specifically: opposed the federal mandate; were angry over the
rising cost of gasoline; and supported energy production from coal and
hydrofracking.

While most were not familiar with the Obamacare mandate on religious
institutions, after learning the details their support for the HHS
mandate weakened, particularly among regular churchgoers.

Finally, most of these voters disclosed that they "are personally and
severely affected by the economic downturn and their primary concern is
their own economic well-being." Hence, they are very negative about
their personal financial plight and "view the national economy as
dismal."  As they struggle to make ends meet, "they see the poor and
unemployed as taking advantage of their hard work by collecting
welfare."

Even with these center-right views, blue-collar Catholics are not yet
ripe for Romney's picking.  That's because they believe that rich people
like Romney play by different rules.  The McLaughlin focus group
respondents said that rich people like Romney "are getting richer at
their expense."

           The candidate campaigns in the Sunshine State

Romney has seven weeks to dispel the notion that he is an out of touch,
Republican rich guy. This is not an impossible task. The groundwork was
laid a generation ago by Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan. They forged
the Republican realignment that included Catholic blue-collar ethnics. 

These two men were elected president because they were perceived as
protectors of the interests of second- and third-generation ethnics
while the Democratic "elitist heirs" of Adlai Stevenson and George
McGovern scorned them.

        Back in 1980, Ronald Reagan opened his successful campaign over
the Labor Day Weekend on Liberty Island in New York Harbor with the
Statue of Liberty serving as a backdrop.  With his shirtsleeves rolled
up, Reagan began his race for the White House by appealing directly to
ethnic Catholic voters.  In his remarks that day, he lauded the true
grit of millions of immigrants who had passed through Ellis Island.

This soft-spoken former Democrat invited Catholics to follow his lead
into the Republican Party. Portraying himself as the antithesis of
cultural liberalism, Reagan stressed the themes of "work, family,
neighborhood, peace and freedom." He told Catholic voters:

	The secret is that when the Left took over the Democratic Party
we took over the Republican Party.  We made the Republican Party into
the Party of the working people, the family, the neighborhood, the
defense of freedom, and yes, the American Flag and the Pledge of
Allegiance to one Nation under God.  So, you see, the Party that so many
of us grew up with still exists except that today it's called the
Republican Party. 

        Fast forward thirty-two years and these same working class
Catholics, albeit smaller in number and older, are still the key to
victory in the heartland states of Wisconsin, Ohio, Pennsylvania,
Michigan and Indiana. And for Romney to move them out of the undecided
column he must do more than tell them he's a nice guy who has a
wonderful family. He must convince them that their working-class values
and priorities are his and that he will protect their interests just as
Reagan did.

If Romney does not move fast to execute a plan to reach out to these
Catholic voters, he will blow the election on November 6 and go down as
the Tom Dewey of our age.

George J. Marlin is an editor of The Quotable Fulton Sheen
<http://astore.amazon.com/thecatthi-20/detail/0385262264>  and the
author of The American Catholic Voter
<http://astore.amazon.com/thecatthi-20/detail/1587310236> . His most
recent book is Narcissist Nation: Reflections of a Blue-State
Conservative <http://astore.amazon.com/thecatthi-20/detail/1587315653> .

The Catholic Thing is a forum for intelligent Catholic commentary.
Opinions expressed by writers are solely their own.

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://gathman.org/pipermail/apologetics/attachments/20120921/23f1afa7/attachment.html>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: printButton.png
Type: image/png
Size: 379 bytes
Desc: printButton.png
URL: <http://gathman.org/pipermail/apologetics/attachments/20120921/23f1afa7/attachment.png>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: romneyfl.jpg
Type: image/jpeg
Size: 10081 bytes
Desc: romneyfl.jpg
URL: <http://gathman.org/pipermail/apologetics/attachments/20120921/23f1afa7/attachment.jpg>