: Catholic Vote Will Decide Election
Phil Brennan, NewsMax.com
Wednesday, Sept. 1, 2004
Despite what he calls the "crack up" of what was once a solid, cohesive voting block, George Marlin predicts Catholics will be decisive in choosing who will win this year’s presidential election.
Marlin has authored the just released "The American Catholic Voter – 200 Years of Political Impact" (St. Augustine's Press) – a book that traces the growth of Catholic influence on elections, local and national, down to the present.
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And while that influence that may have reached its apogee when the so-called “Reagan Democrats” deserted their party to vote for a conservative Republican who shared their social values, Marlin insists it will be back with a vengeance this year.
In an interview with NewsMax.com, Marlin explained the division among Catholics which has watered down their power as a voting bloc.
"You had the post-war 'greatest generation' - inner city, blue collar ethnics who took advantage of the G.I. Bill of Rights and who strove to become middle class, they suddenly felt unwanted in their home party,” Marlin explained.
He noted that the party’s leftward tillt began with “elitists” like Adlai E. Stevenson who frowned upon the values of the blue collar Catholics.
But, Marlin said, things began to change "when a significant number of the grandchildren of those members of the greatest generation became Yuppie Catholics.
"They suddenly reached beyond their parents, achieving upper middle class or upper class status. They longed and lusted to be accepted by the upper East sides of Manhattan and Boston and Chicago and Philadelphia, and so in many ways took a walk from the Church."
They became, he said "cafeteria Catholics" a phrase describing dissident Catholics who feel free to pick and choose which doctrines and disciplines of the Church they will accept.
Marlin touched on the issue of the wide division between traditional Catholics and those who no longer practice their faith.
Two recent Gallup polls reported in NewsMax.com revealed that Catholic registered voters who attend church weekly - a group that represents about one-third of all Catholic registered voters - support Bush over Kerry by a 52 percent to 42 percent margin.
Among those "Catholic" voters who seldom or never go to church (a group that makes up 38 percent of self-described Catholics), Kerry had a large lead of 57 percent to 39 percent.
As a result, Marlin said "Today, in the voting public you have to distinguish between the practicing Catholic and the cafeteria Catholic. In my judgment, George Bush’s job is to energize the church-going practicing Catholic vote and John Kerry’s job is to energize the non-practicing Catholics , which he should be good at because he’s a non-practicing Catholic."
If a CBS poll released August 19 is correct, it appears that Bush is doing what George Marlin suggested.
It showed that where Kerry once had a double digit lead among Catholics over Bush, the two are now tied.
Marlin weighed in on the dispute over whether priests should refuse to give Communion to Kerry should he approach them during Mass. "It would not shock me if Kerry’s handlers would welcome a priest denying him Communion so he could make himself a victim, and all the Yuppie cafeteria Catholics might become energized.”
Marlin noted how the Catholic divide effected the 2000 race. "... in the year 2000 George Bush received 57 percent of the practicing Catholics vote while Al Gore received 59 percent of the cafeteria Catholics.
"Catholics still matter in a lot of states – they represent about 25 percent of the voting population nationally. However they are congregated in generally key states so their percentage of vote is even greater.
"In my judgment Missouri, Ohio and Wisconsin are the three key swing states. In Wisconsin 32 percent of the voters are Catholics. Bush and Gore tied at 48 percent of the vote each that year. Wisconsin could decide the election, and the Catholics could decide Wisconsin."
Marlin said in this election "depending on the turnout, practicing Catholics could turn this election for Bush and the non-practicing Catholics if they turn out to swing the election to Kerry. "This election will be decided by Catholics of various stripes in the key states."
Elections, he noted, are decided by undecided voters and this year there aren’t that many.
"Kerry didn’t get much of a bump after the convention and I don’t think Bush is going to get much of a bump after the Republican convention.
"This election turns on getting out your base vote. Whoever turns out the largest number of base voters wins.
"The Bush campaign has to energize practicing Catholics. They have to make sure those people know Kerry’s record. They have to make sure that they know Bush’s record on abortion, on partial birth abortion, on gay rights, on gay marriages, on gay unions. That’s the key."
In his book, Marlin provides an in-depth history of America’s political background that goes far beyond the facts about the Catholic vote. He traces the evolution of today’s political parties, explores the issues that divided them and provides glimpses of the key historical figures of the times.
Along the way he shows how Catholics such as Confederate General Longstreet , Union General William T. Sherman’s wife, and the feisty New York Archbishop John Hughes (President Lincoln used him on foreign diplomatic missions and sought to have the pope elevate him to the rank of cardinal) had a huge impact on the politics of their day.
It is an invaluable lesson in American history seen through the prism of one of the nation’s most important and influential voting blocs that emerged from a viciously anti-Catholic colonial era to become respected citizens of the United States.
The book is an inspiring story of ethnic Catholics who arrived on American shores with only the clothes on their backs, worked through their parishes and neighborhoods to overcome hostile, nativist bigotry, to become a significant voice in local, state and national political affairs.
George Marlin has served as Executive Director of the massive Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, and is now Chairman and C.O.O. of the Philadelphia Trust Company.
Among his nine books is the 46-volume "Collected Works of G.K. Chesterton." The foreword to this book is written by Michael Barone, one of the nation’s leading experts on American politics. |
