Obama and the Catholic Vote: Looking at the Empirical Evidence and Studying the Tea Leaves

Last evening, Prof. Douglas Kmiec, friend and colleague to all of us here at Mirror of Justice, spoke at the University of St. Thomas School of Law on “The Call to Faith-ful Citizenship & the 2008 Primary.” (The program was sponsored by The Murphy Institute for Catholic Thought, Law, and Public Policy, the co-director of which is MoJ’s own Tom Berg.) Doug Kmiec offered his thinking on the 2008 presidential race and explained how he came to the place where, as he said in his now-famous Slate essay, he believes Barack Obama is “a natural for the Catholic vote.”

In his presentation last night, Professor Kmiec described with eloquence and feeling his personal journey in American presidential politics as a Catholic who takes his faith seriously, beginning with the John F. Kennedy campaign while he was in junior high school, from involvement in the Robert F. Kennedy and George McGovern campaigns, to his inspiration by Ronald Reagan and later participation in his administration, and culminating (for now) with his recent service with the Mitt Romney campaign. By the end of the evening, I certainly had a better understanding of how Doug Kmiec came to his current place of disaffection for other candidates and intrigue with Obama. But I remain less than convinced that he had outlined a path that is natural for other Catholic voters.

To begin with, the empirical evidence as I have reviewed it concerning the Catholic part of the electorate appears to offer anything but encouraging news to the Obama candidacy. In his Slate essay, Doug Kmiec suggested that, in his quest for the Democratic presidential nomination against Senator Hillary Clinton, “Obama has been narrowing the gap, using the Catholic vote to vault to victory.” This commentary was written a month ago, and a month is long time in any primary season, and a very long time in this roller-coaster year. So very much has changed since February. But doesn't the longitudinal evidence since January confirm a powerful trend away from Obama by Catholic voters?

From the beginning of the primary season, Senator Clinton has out-polled Senator Obama among Catholics by wide margins in most states and overall. (The CNN web site has a complete set of the exit polls from each primary state, a must-see web site for the political junkie.) In a heavily Catholic state like Massachusetts, for example, Senator Clinton won the Catholic vote by almost 2-1, notwithstanding that Senator Kennedy had enthusiastically endorsed and campaigned for Senator Obama. In California, as another example, the Catholic vote broke 2-1 for Clinton over Obama, rising to nearly 3-1 among Catholics who attend weekly Mass. Poignantly, even while winning his home state of Illinois by a 2-1 margin, the favorite son Obama still lost the Catholic vote in to Clinton (although it was close there).

The Obama campaign initially tried to downplay the electoral gap, arguing that the Obama deficit in Catholic votes was merely a manifestation of the campaign’s weakness among Hispanic voters (thus acknowledging one manifest weakness to try to ward off another). (See here and here.) And the news media appeared to cooperate in accepting this explanation—for a while.

But then came Ohio and Rhode Island last week, the most recent big states on the primary calendar, each of which has small numbers of Hispanics. The Catholic margin for Clinton over Obama not only persisted, but remained overwhelming. (See here.) In Ohio, the Catholic margin was somewhat under 2-1 for Clinton over Obama, while in Rhode Island, one of the most Catholic states in the nation and where Catholics made up a majority of the primary electorate, the margin for Clinton over Obama exceeded 2-1.

Demographics may well play a role in explaining why Obama has failed to attract Catholic voters in the primary campaign, but it may go much deeper than strong Hispanic support for Clinton. Obama’s centers of support have been African-Americans, who are more Protestant than other ethnic groups, and affluent white liberals, who as a demographic group are mostly secular but are seasoned with liberal Mainline Protestantism. By contrast, Clinton’s vote has been anchored not only in Hispanics, who indeed are heavily Catholic, but also in the traditional lunch-bucket Democrats of the working class, who in states like Massachusetts, Ohio, and Pennsylvania are disproportionately Catholic. Given that the last state mentioned here is the next big one on the primary calendar, what happens in Pennsylvania will be the next important data-point on this subject.

Others have argued that Obama’s softness among Catholics is a matter of style, with one commentator saying that Obama “speaks in the cadences of the black church, with a real Protestant approach.” Given that anyone of any political viewpoint who listens to Obama will find appeal in his inspirational style, dismissing Catholic disaffection from Obama as due to speaking style alone is unpersuasive. But perhaps the style of campaign itself, and the self-reverential tone of the content of that speaking, may account for some of the Catholic disaffection.

Might it be that the sometimes messianic quality of the Obama campaign has made many people of faith, Catholic and otherwise, uncomfortable? While the “Cult of Obama” certainly has been fanned by the media, the Obama campaign has exploited and promoted that approach when it serves their purposes. Recall those reports (here and here ) about how “[v]olunteer trainees at Camp Obama are told not to talk issues with voters, but to offer personal testimony about how they ‘came’ to Obama”? Notice how the other leading candidates, Senators Clinton and McCain, regularly hold town meetings and take questions from voters, while Senator Obama apparently prefers large rallies where he speaks to adoring crowds (see here). And, for heaven’s sake (pun intended), remember the Washington Post’s report on Barack Obama’s speech at Dartmouth College before the New Hampshire Primary in which he said: “My job this morning is to be so persuasive . . . that a light will shine through that window, a beam of light will come down upon you, you will experience an epiphany, and you will suddenly realize that you must go to the polls and vote for Barack.” Sure, I know Obama was just offering a little campaign humor (I do hope!), but the revival tent approach certainly has been staged by the Obama campaign. Isn’t it just possible that the self-revering focus of the Obama campaign has been off-putting to people of faith?

And then, of course, there is substance. We here on MoJ have long debated, and God willing will long continue to debate, the range of issues of public significance that should be of concern to any Catholic, indeed any person interested in the common good. But, of course, a candidate’s attitude toward the sanctity of human life will and should be remain the top of any hierarchy of Catholic public values. While there are Catholics who find themselves voting Democratic despite that party’s general exclusion of pro-life views, my friends here on MoJ and elsewhere tell me that they feel awkward doing so. My guess is that most voting Catholics on the Democratic side share that feeling and thus, quite naturally, if they have to vote for another pro-choice Democrat (for other reasons), would prefer that he or she at least be somewhat less objectionable, somewhat less "in your face" about it. (We'll leave for another day our ongoing friendly debate about whether, when, and how wise is that justification for supporting any pro-choice candidate.)

In this respect, Senator Clinton’s position on abortion of course is unacceptable, but she has at least made some noises on occasion deprecating abortion and she has managed to avoid being associated with some of the most extreme positions on the subject. A long way to go, in my estimation, but the question of the moment is comparative. By contrast, Senator Obama’s actions as an Illinois state senator to kill (pun intended) the Born Alive Infant Protection Act has drawn considerable attention in recent weeks (see here). Even NARAL did not oppose this bill and it passed the United States Senate by a unanimous voice vote (before Senator Obama’s election to that body). Thus, Obama has come across to knowledgeable voters as “More Pro-Choice Than NARAL.”

Now we learn of Senator Obama’s July, 2007 speech to a Planned Parenthood political action fundraiser, which is now public (see here). He pledged that he would “not yield” in his commitment to the pro-choice movement. He then promised: “The first thing I’d do as president is sign the Freedom of Choice Act. That’s the first thing that I’d do.” And so I have to ask, for a candidate who says that “culture wars” are “so 90s” and tells us that it is time to move past wedge issues in campaigns, is this promise to make national codification of unlimited abortion rights the centerpiece of his opening act as president the kind of thing that will make him a natural for the Catholic vote? I guess we'll see as election year coverage continues.

Greg Sisk