“No pander page for Catholics”
Philip Weiss is the editor and a major author of “Mondoweiss: The War of Ideas in the Middle East.” Along with several co-authors the site covers events, discussions, arguments, etc. both in Israel and Palestine as well as in the United States.
As you might imagine Weiss is accused of anti-Semitism albeit Jewish anti-Semitism, whereas yours truly is asked if she is a Catholic anti-Semite. So it goes. Since everyone gets so frothy about this, I don’t usually link to his site but I recommend it. Today he has a post that should interest dotCommonweal readers and it is a question that I ask myself from time to time: Does the Obama campaign care about the Catholic vote?
In today’s provocation, Weiss’s compares the Obama campaign’s Catholic messaging and Jewish messaging. “If Catholic voters can swing by the millions, why all this attention to Jews, who represent only a couple hundred thousand votes of swing? Well, for one thing, Obama surely figures that his general message will be appealing to the Catholics who care about the economy– he doesn’t have to tailor his message. That’s true of most Jewish voters too. They’ll be moved, or not, by Obama’s overall message. Most of them are liberal Dems”
Read on for Weiss’s view. I am not sure Weiss has identified the big difference but we can talk about that later.
President Obama announced his Catholic team’s members on the 13th. So they have had only a week to get briefed, Skype each other and figure out a way to answer Paul Ryan’s Catholic-based attacks on Obama. Which is fine, I guess, although I am sure no one is working on how to answer my Catholic-based attack on Obama (viz., he seems to have declared himself prosecutor, judge, jury and chief drone executioner, and nobody seems to mind). The lack of a Catholic pander so far shouldn’t bother anyone since, within living memory, campaigns didn’t begin until Labor Day, and they certainly didn’t start before the nominating (sic) conventions. So it’s two more weeks before the pander becomes delayed in any technical-historical sense.
Three weeks ago the Pew Research Center’s Forum on Religion & Public Life released the results of a national survey that addressed the issue of the voting preferences in this presidential election of Catholics who share the bishops’ concerns about governmental infringement on religious liberty. By a 56% to 36% margin, Catholics who were aware of the bishops’ concerns said they agreed with such concerns. The August 1st survey report also cited an earlier survey, conducted about a month earlier, that found that 74% of Catholics are satisfied with the bishops’ leadership, up from 51% in June 2002. Despite results indicating that majorities of Catholics admire the bishops’ leadership and share their concerns regarding religious liberty, the August 1st survey also found that President Obama maintains a substantial lead over Mitt Romney among Catholics on social issues such as gay rights and abortion–51% to 34%, respectively, among all Catholic voters, though Romney has a 53% to 37% lead among white Catholics who attend Mass at least weekly.
It seems to me that the Obama campaign must be well aware of such polling results and that despite the increasing influence of the bishops in some facets of the lives of Catholics, the bishops have marginal influence over how Catholics will choose to vote in the upcoming presidential election. In short, the Obama campaign no doubt already knows that a majority of Catholics will vote for its candidate and that resources can be better marshaled elsewhere (e.g., focusing on Jewish large-scale donors).
The August 1st Pew survey results can be found at:
http://www.pewforum.org/Politics-and-Elections/Catholics-Share-Bishops-Concerns-about-Religious-Liberty.aspx
” — majorities of Catholics admire the bishops’ leadership and share their concerns regarding religious liberty—”
Could it be because so many of them get their “truth” from the local diocesan house organs which are about as objective as EWTN?
‘Could it be because so many of them get their “truth” from the local diocesan house organs which are about as objective as EWTN?’
More likely because they recognize the Truth and are following those who happily proclaim it.
It surely isn’t because of diocesan newspapers or even EWTN–the percentage of Catholics who read or watch them is surely very low, and of them what percentage would be moved to vote by them?
Bruce:
I wonder what Truth is being proclaimed when on EWTN
- I hear a priest refer to our president as a “narcissist” and
- I view interviews with upholders of the values of capitalism as though it was mentioned in the Beatitudes. (Blessed are the capitialists, for they shall inherit the Church. ?)
The Pew report on the satisfaction of Catholics with their bishops asked if we were very or somewhat satisfied with them. It seems to me that “somewhat’ an cover a lot of territory.
Back to the topic: Does the Obama campaign care about the Catholic vote?
Is the Obama campaign afraid to “pander,” in Weiss’s phrase, to the Catholic vote? Whatever it may say by way of appeal, it’s going to be attacked by one Catholic faction or the other. If it does the economy and jobs, pro-lifers we’ll say it doesn’t care about unborn life. If it tries to haul in liberal Catholics to attest to Obama’s support for the social welfare/social net, health care reform, and the health-care mandate, they’ll get attacked for being pro-abortion.
The Obama campaign has to care about the Catholic vote, but they may have decided to let sleeping dogs lie. Don’t remind Catholics how much they disagree with one another.
Of course, Obama cares about the Catholic vote, but I think that he has decided prudently not to continue a war that was started by the U.S. bishops very early in his administration when Notre Dame invited him to receive an honorary degree and be the speaker at the 2009 commencement. I use that word, war, since it is used now to justify opposition to the HHS contraception mandate. It seems to me that this combat began over three years ago.
Well what do you know? Cardinal Dolan is giving the Benediction at the Republican Convention on the very night that Romney is accepting the nomination.
Who is pandering to whom?
The Cardinal’s spokesperson says that the Cardinal told both parties that he would be available to offer prayer at their conventions. I am skeptical about that, but, since I have no insider information, I will have to take it as true.
But, here is one scenario that has crossed my not so charitable mind: the Republican convention planners let it be known that they wanted to invite Cardinal Dolan (What a coup!); Dolan wanted to accept but to be “fair and balanced” he wrote to both parties indicating his openness to an invitation to their conventions.
My advice to the Democrats? Invite him. He will have to accept lest he be accused of partisan politics.
Maybe Obama is a bit wary after the Rick Warren debacle at the time of his inauguration.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/12/17/rick-warren-obama-invocat_n_151877.html
If Obama wants a Catholic bishop on the platform during the convention, find one who is not so publicly conservative, particularly in LGBT matters. Maybe Stephen Blaire, Blaise Cupich, someone who can credibly represent the USCCB on their concerns for the Ryan budget, . But we know that would be career suicide for them so he most likely have to dig into the ranks of the retired or non-American, but they do exist. These names come to mind: Thomas Gumbleton and John Cummins.
But to invite an obvious anti-Obama conservative would not be a smart thing to do.
“But to invite an obvious anti-Obama conservative would not a smart thing to do.”
But wait, if, as the Cardinal’s spokesperson has said, the Cardinal has offered to give a prayer at both conventions, it would not be polite for the Democrats to say “thanks, but no thanks.”
But, perhaps, the Cardinal would have to decline owing to the fact that he has a previous commitment at the Vatican during the week of the Democratic Convention.