Will Catholics Deliver Ohio to McCain?
October 2nd, 2008 at 09:25am Mark Noonan
We certainly pray it is so:
A new survey from Rasmussen Reports shows that Republican presidential candidate Sen. John McCain is leading Democratic Sen. Barack Obama among Catholic voters in the key swing state of Ohio 51 percent to 43 percent.
McCain leads Obama among all Ohio voters by 48 to 47 percent, a statistical tie within the September 28 poll’s margin of error.
According to Rasmussen, 57 percent of Catholic voters named economic issues the most important, while 15 percent named national security issues the most important.
Catholic voters are positioned to be an important swing demographic in Ohio.
According to the Columbus Dispatch, Ohio has more than 2 million Catholics. The Catholic vote is particularly strong in western Ohio in the Dayton area and the 13 rural counties north and east of the city. There are more than 500,000 Catholics in that area, more than in any part of the state except Cleveland.
While about one in four Ohio voters is Catholic, they tend to have a higher turnout rate.
Rev. John Putka, a Marianist priest and political science professor at the University of Dayton, told the Columbus Dispatch that the Catholic vote is “going to decide the election.”
He broke the Catholic vote into three blocs: observants, modernists, and secularists.
According to Father Putka, “observants” are conservative, attend church regularly, and typically vote Republican based on abortion and other social issues. They supported George W. Bush over John Kerry in 2004 by 65 to 35 percent.
“McCain’s selection of Palin totally galvanized this pro-life group,” Fr. Putka observed. “They were lukewarm before but not now.”
That last bit is very important as it provides a solid base among Catholic voters for McCain, while allowing McCain, himself, to go after the less observant - yet still non-liberal - Catholics who are genuine swing voters. And this could decide it - and, of course, this is why it appears that Obama and his Democrats are pulling out all the stops in their voter fraud efforts in Ohio. While Obama can win the White House without Ohio, it is a very difficult prospect…and even more difficult given the prospect of Obama losing Michigan and having to fight desperately for Pennsylvania’s Democrat yet pro-life voters.
As we go into the home stretch, look to the way the Catholic vote is breaking - if McCain maintains and/or expands his lead amongst Catholics, then November 4th will be a long, long night for Obama and his Democrats.
Entry Filed under: Campaign 2008, Democrats, Religion, Republicans
9 Comments
1. Wellington | October 2nd, 2008 at 11:52 am
Probably not, but the Diebold hack will…
2. js | October 2nd, 2008 at 11:55 am
really, if mac doesnt get into the fight…how can they?
the people dont know the whole truth if mccain does not get out there and tell it…so if all they have is what obama says…its such a shame…
mccains people need to be much much more aggressive.
3. uffy | October 2nd, 2008 at 12:54 pm
I wouldn’t worry about the Catholics, I would worry about the millions of votes McCain lost last night. McCain voted for the 450 page one trillion dollar socialist manifesto. He refused to listen to the conservatives. McCain lost my vote also. Like Main Street USA, I will also being staying home on Nov. 4th.
4. Zach | October 2nd, 2008 at 2:30 pm
uffy and other like-minded people..
I dont understand your train of thought here. You do realize that a “no vote” is equal to voting for Obama right? I dont like this bailout idea either, but I believe McCain has to become the next president because he would less damage than an Obama/Biden administration.
McCain; warts and all, has a far better chance of righting our countries ship than Obama’s rhetoric about “hope” “change” and larger government. Period
Frankly, when this bailout package is passed through congress, we aren’t going to have any money for even 1/2 of the spending Obama is proposing…
And that goes for a two-front war as well (Senator McCain)
I respect your decision to not vote for McCain though.
5. js | October 2nd, 2008 at 3:26 pm
so no vote to you is bettter than any vote at all….hmmmm
honestly…if Jesus was running…would you think he was perfect? or too religious…think about it…none of us are perfect…and when dealing with political parties…we have to understand that none of them are going to make everyone happy all the time…
just like the bail out…if opposing means possibly causing substantial damage to an already stressed out economy…then its your representatives duty to back it…yet…the socialist programs that interfered with the free market and capialism…the programs that caused this in the first place…by forcing non government entities to follow the governmental regulation…originated in the government…
so..effectively…the government fixing the screw up they made…s that such a bad thing?
i cant call that socialism…i call that being responsible and doing the right thing…
6. Jeremiah | October 2nd, 2008 at 3:42 pm
Some would say that conscience alone is sufficient to lead one to vote for the party they wish to lead, being therefore deficient or lacking in truth. If we are not aware of the political candidates moral or immoral beliefs, we as good as reprobate…I’ll explain:
God gave us a rational, moral thinking to go with, and His Word as our spiritual guide to place conviction upon our minds as to what is Right and what is Wrong. And disobedience to this voids the validity of our arguments for our ‘true’ purposes set forth in His Word.
King David for example, God set our a purpose for Him as king, though afterward did not act upon God’s great plan for him, but became a murderer. Although God chose David as king, it was still up to David to choose his way or God’s way.
We have seen though a study of the Scriptures that all kings who defied God were struck down, and He tells us that this will be the case for all the nations (i,e., Rome, Babylon, Jericho, Jud(e)a, Israel on more than one occasion) that do not uphold His standards of righteousness. All the nations that forget God.
So, to vote for our political candidates with a dismissal of their moral or immoral beliefs would be just a bit over the board. It is not thinking or caring for the most part, about the many souls ripe for the harvest.
To the true Christian … Jesus Christ is Savior, King, Physician, and Counselor … He is all these, and should guide us in every decision we make in life … take the many quotes compiled into one book by the Christian writer B.F. Morris which gives account after account of the Christian life that our Founding Father’s lived in their policy making for this country … liberals of today would call that an era of “theocracy” when nothing could be farther from the truth … The Founders intended to lead as the Holy Spirit led them … as they were not the ones making the policy, and know that only God can lead. And that’s what we need so very desperately in our day and age, when teachers are instructing our next generation with the Post-modern rhetoric replacing Christian thought with Darwinism and combining it with the socialist tyranny of 1930s German propaganda.
Clearly, there has never been a time in history that a standard of right and wrong in a Right and Wrong world must be realized before all hope is lost.
Keep the faith!
God bless!
7. FmrMarine | October 2nd, 2008 at 9:03 pm
JER
>>>Clearly, there has never been a time in history that a standard of right and wrong in a Right and Wrong >>>
“In the last days, the wheat will be divided from the chaff”
Our country is now @ 50% wheat and 50% chaff.
The shaking has started.!
Hold on it’ll be an interesting ride.
8. js | October 2nd, 2008 at 11:30 pm
you would think that if they knew obama’s chicago…they absolutely would give ohio to anybody BUT obamasiah;
“The key, for Mr. Freddoso, is the Chicago world in which Mr. Obama made himself first a community organizer and then a state senator, before heading off to Washington in 2005. It is by viewing Chicago that the gap between Mr. Obama’s rhetoric about reform and his career as a conventional Chicago pol is most visible.”
And Chicago is a city in decline, Siegel notes:
In recent years the city has lost its two leading banks and thousands of jobs in the futures and commodities markets.
Chicago’s middle class continues to flee — between 2000 and 2006, 63,000 people left the city.
Chicago has the highest retail sales tax in the nation, 10.25 percent, and is the only city with a head tax on employment.
Corruption and crime continue to thrive — Chicago has a murder rate three times higher than New York’s.
Siegel writes: “And yet, Mr. Freddoso argues, reform for Mr. Obama ‘is something to discuss during election campaigns, not to be implemented or followed’ when it might jeopardize his ambitions.
Continuing his report on Freddoso’s book, Siegel writes: “By his own admission, Mr. Obama’s eyes were long on the prize of becoming the mayor of Chicago. Thus his willingness to make common cause with Tony Rezko, Allison Davis and Valerie Jarrett, locally wired political figures who did well for themselves by using state dollars to build publicly subsidized slums…
“What Mr. Obama did was unexceptional. He simply cultivated the people he needed to cultivate in order to climb the greasy pole of local preferment, giving beautiful speeches along the way.”
http://www.newsmax.com/insidecover/obama_chicago/2008/10/02/136744.html
9. js | October 2nd, 2008 at 11:33 pm
could you imagine some of the speech’s he gave to those folks stuck in those stinking ghetto’burbs in chicago to get elected…just to stiff them and promote rezko’s pandering and criminal conduct…