The Catholic Factor: Which way will they swing?

Looking heavenward from the floor of Philadelphia's First Union Center, delegates spotted a large white banner that appeared on the last evening of the convention. Bright red letters declared "Catholics Bush" on the unauthorized, hand-painted sheet, hanging from a plush skybox the GOP provided for its Catholic Task Force. As Christians, Catholics are obliged to love Al Gore too, but this newly formed task force at the RNC hopes to convince them not to vote for him in November.

Party strategists believe that Catholic swing voters will provide Bush with his margin of victory. According to Steven Wagner, the task force's executive director, George W. Bush has strengthened his appeal to Catholic voters in the last few weeks, even though he didn't pick a Catholic as his running mate. "With the selection of Dick Cheney, the ticket has responded to the call of the bishops to stand unambiguously for the life of the unborn," Wagner explains. Deal Hudson, editor of Crisis magazine and an informal adviser to the Bush campaign, agrees that any doubts about Bush's commitment to the pro-life cause should be eliminated with his selection of a pro-life running mate, and his acceptance-speech pledge to sign a ban on partial-birth abortion.

The task force wanted this year's convention to have a visible Catholic presence, and a steady stream of the city's priests was hosted in its crowded skybox each night. Some of them periodically visited delegates on the convention floor. Anthony Cardinal Bevilacqua of the Archdiocese of Philadelphia delivered the closing prayer of the convention.

In his new position at the RNC, Wagner will be putting to the test the conclusions he has reached based on the landmark voter surveys he conducted for Crisis over the past two years. In his analysis of Catholic voting trends, Wagner found a unique political identity among active Catholics (whom he defines as attending Mass at least four times a month) and argues that this group constitutes an important swing constituency. While inactive Catholics have voted more Democratic in presidential elections since 1960 than the country as a whole, it is active Catholics who are the swing voters. They voted for Nixon in 1972, for Carter in 1976, and for Reagan in 1980 and 1984. (As if to demonstrate their volatility, they voted against George Bush in 1988, but supported him in 1992.) Active Catholics generally represent almost half of all Catholic voters. Catholics constituted 29 percent of the presidential vote in 1996, divided evenly among active (15 percent) and inactive (14 percent).

Catholic voters could have been responsible for a miracle in 1996. Had just 15 percent of them shifted to Bob Dole, giving him 53 percent of their vote, he would have won the presidency. According to Wagner's math, if W. corrals 55 percent of the Catholic vote, it will be impossible for Gore to win.

The attitudes of the Catholic swing voters appear to be sympathetic to Bush. Only a minority of Catholics support what Wagner calls the "social justice" agenda that values tolerance over courage, and favors an activist national government, race and gender hiring preferences, and multiculturalism. Since 1960, the majority of all Catholics, and 71 percent of active Catholics, have shifted to a "social renewal" orientation. These Catholics are responding to a perceived moral crisis, which they believe has been exacerbated by the federal government and public education. They support an absolute standard of morality and criticize popular culture for undermining the character and values of young people. The Democrats' Hollywood convention probably won't appeal to this sensibility.

Bush's call for individual responsibility, renewed community life, and civility is a direct appeal to voters concerned with what Princeton's Robert George calls our "moral ecology." Two-thirds of active Catholics consider abortion to be always immoral, as do 55 percent of all Catholics. Bush's unambiguous support for the pro-life platform plank, and his choice of a pro-life running mate, reinforce his standing with these Catholic voters.

The Catholic swing voters Republicans will be courting this fall are concentrated in many of the key battleground states. The RNC task force hopes to create a mailing list of a million and a half of these voters in nine states, including New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, Illinois, and Missouri. The RNC's unprecedented effort, with the enthusiastic support of the Bush campaign, represents the practical application of Steve Wagner's analysis.

Wagner identifies four groups of Catholic voters, two of which, representing 42 percent of all Catholics, are already more Republican than not: inactive Catholics with libertarian economic leanings, and active Catholics very concerned with the moral climate. Al Gore, on the other hand, will be counting on a third group: the 32 percent of Catholics who are both inactive qua Catholics, and sympathetic with the liberal social-justice agenda.

The fourth group (26 percent) of Catholics are active, and more concerned with the moral climate than with social justice, but they are still more Democratic than Republican. This group is crucial for Bush. Steven Wagner hopes the Bush campaign will get the message of the parties' competing platforms to these voters, and add the requisite poetry by laying out an agenda of social renewal. Then, come November, the sentiment of that sign in Philadelphia will be transformed into votes.