The Catholic vote in '96: can it be found in church?

It is difficult to pick up a newsmagazine or newspaper without seeing some reference to the Republican courtship of the Catholic vote, or analyses of Catholics as swing voters, or even the claim that the 1996 election hinges on what Catholics decide. Much of this talk is inaccurate.

There is no monolithic "Catholic vote." The impact of Catholics as a bloc of the electorate is overrated. Nevertheless, younger Catholic voters could well determine the outcome of the 1996 presidential election. These apparently contrary claims are a function of two factors:

* Voting Catholics live mainly in the states with large electoral college votes where the election will be decided.

* Younger Catholics are less likely to pick up political cues at Mass, less likely to identify with the church's social teachings and are more likely to be Republican. On the other hand, and more interesting still, these younger Catholics are more moderate on social issues than either their parents or the cur@ rent Republican party. Finally, the most effective appeal to these swing voters will be more secular than religious.

Has there been a large movement of Catholics to the Republican cause? Pundits tend to focus on the Democratic party loyalties of Catholics in the early New Deal or look at the massive Catholic margin for Kennedy in 1960 and conclude from current figures that there has been a shift to the Republican party. Moreover, many journalists connect the church's teaching on abortion with the Republicans, anti-abortion plank and conclude that Catholics are closer to the Republican party's stances on family values and moral is sues than they are to the Democrats'. These conclusions are historically myopic and sociologically mistaken.

Catholic political history: A capsule look

Except for two electoral periods when they rallied to one of their own in the face of religious persecution, Catholic voters have been a diverse lot. Much of this diversity is the result of ethnic migrations and settlement patterns. This story has been told by many historians and needs only a short summary here.

The Irish were the American church's premier power brokers. They spoke English and understood Anglo-American political institutions. They became Democrats in response to religious persecution and the second-class citizenship perpetrated by the people who controlled the Whig, Know Nothing, Republican, and Progressive political parties. Their descendants have remained more Democratic than rising social status and economic success would have predicted.

When it came to politics, Italian women apparently listened to their Irish priests. But historically, Italian men tended to be anticlerical and became Republican. Italian men owned hauling trucks and vegetable farms. These respectively became the post-world War II trucking firms, suburban ban housing tracts, shopping malls, and financial institutions which shaped the powerful suburban Republican machines that now ring Northeastern cities.

German Catholics moved to the frontier very early, farming the heartland and settling the villages that became cities. Their politics were often the opposite of their German-Lutheran neighbors who were sometimes Republicans and sometimes Democrats. The anti-German hysteria of World War I, the anti-Catholicism of evangelical Protestants, and the Northern revival of the Ku Klux Klan in the 1920s - all connected to the Democratic party - did much to consolidate German-American Catholics in the Republican fold.

Other Eastern and Southern European Catholic immigrants first voted Republican because their plant managers marched them to the polls with instructions to cast the Republican ballot and because the big-city ethnic machines early in this century were often Republican. The reaction to Al Smith's candidacy anchored them in the Democratic party, though some drifted to the Republicans when the cold war heated up. Eisenhower, Nixon, and Reagan proved more appealing than their Democratic opponents.

Except for Cubans, Latino-Catholic immigrants have been heavily Democratic, but they are only now becoming a force in the electorate. Since l964, African-American Catholics have been solidly Democrat.

One event in modern Catholic political history has shaped everything since - the election of John F. Kennedy to the presidency in 196O. Kennedy's disavowal of any prior political loyalty to Rome before the Houston Ministerial Alliance and his subsequent behavior as president did much to allay the suspicions of Protestants and jews as well as unchurched Americans. Vatican II's endorsement of religious liberty - advocated by many American clergy and politicians-was also a significant step.

Conservative and Republican Catholics followed Kennedy's lead. When the American bishops drafted pastoral letters on national defense and the economy, prominent Catholics from recent Republican administrations offered counter-statements. In time, Americans grew accustomed to Catholic political leaders, Democrats and Republicans alike, asserting their independence from clerical influence. Nowadays when the specter of theocracy is raised, it usually concerns evangelical preachers, not Catholic priests. Kennedy's election is full of partisan irony. An analysis of American National Election Studies data-sets shows that 83 percent of those who called themselves Catholic on national surveys and who actually went to the polls voted for Kennedy. Further, Catholic identification with the Democratic party surged throughout the sixties. Nevertheless, Kennedy's election allowed Catholics in the Republican party to rise to prominence and made ordinary Catholics the target for Republican appeals.

Well before the end of the sixties, political analyst Kevin Phillips had outlined a New Majoritarian strategy aimed especially at Catholic men upset with the long reach of the federal government in implementing civil-rights and, later, feminist policies. When statewide ERA referenda failed in both New York and New Jersey in 1975, with the crucial negative votes cast in suburban Catholic communities, Republicans devised a strategy to attract those eventually called Reagan Democrats. Reagan himself was popular with Catholics. He could be forgiven that his drifter of a father had not brought him up in the church. His charm, his upbeat outlook, his loyalty to core values, and his capacity to answer questions with stories, not facts, identified him with a long line of Irish-Catholic politicians.

When Ronald Reagan won with substantial Catholic support in l980, he filled his cabinet with an unprecedented number of Catholics. New opportunities opened for Catholic politicians, the stigma was gone. Under Reagan, the earlier political pluralism of Catholics, overturned by the Kennedy surge, returned. Yet the Reagan era also, and for the first time, stimulated a political voice for women separate from that of men. That voice found its home in the Democratic party.

When the Democrats selected Congresswoman Geraldine Ferarro as Walter Mondale's running mate in l984, she faced some of the worst invective ever heard in modern American politics. Innuendoes first about links to lesbians and then to the mafia marked the campaign. But no Italian-American defense organization came to her defense, as they had for similarly situated men. Even "gentleman" George Bush said that he had "kicked a little butt" in the vice-presidential de bate. The newly appointed archbishop of New York phrased a statement attacking Ferraro's stance on abortion in such a way that it seemed that a Catholic in good standing could not vote for her. Embarrassed by the transparent endorsement of the Republican ticket by the nation's most visible Catholic prelate, the president of the National Conference of Catholic Bishops quickly released a statement reiterating the obligation of bishops to offer general criteria for judging candidates and to refrain from endorsing candidates or parties.

The Ferraro candidacy confirmed three trends:

* A Catholic candidate will not always rally Catholics to the cause.

* Catholic women do not routinely view politics in the same way as Catholic men.

* Men can sometimes get ugly about successful women in politics.

After Ferraro, Catholic women began to take a long look at an emerging alliance between Catholic leaders and Re@ publicans. They sensed they would come out on the short end of cultural politics, or "wedge issues," and fought back in 1988 and 1992.

Catholic political generations

There are pronounced generational differences in Catholic voting patterns. For Democratic candidates, the Catholic vote has turned into a contest between the Grim Reaper and the Stork. In 196O, 76 percent of all Catholics who entered the electorate between 1932 and 1960 considered themselves New Deal Democrats. Furthermore, A percent of all New Deal-generation Catholics actually voted and supported the Democratic nominee. By 1988, only 44 percent actually went to the polls and voted for the Democratic nominee. The decline was more pronounced among Catholic men than women. In between came the landslide Nixon election of 1972 though 6O percent of Catholics were Democrats, only 44 percent of the Democrats actually voted for George McGovern; 16 percent did not vote, and 58 percent went for Nixon. Chicago's Catholic mayor, Richard J. Daley, had been read out of the convention and replaced by "limousine liberals," black activists, "bra-burners," and "peaceniks," or so it seemed. But, despite the vote for Nixon, Republican party identification never rose above 35 percent among New Deal-generation Catholics.

The voting patterns are quite different for those who first entered the electorate in 1968 or after, the baby boomers and post-baby boomers. The first wave of boomers, if they connected with a political party at all, were Democrats. But they became Democrats at a rate about 10 percent lower than that of their parents. Moreover, the youngest members of this generation-the cohort entering the electorate in l98O and there after-were nearly 20 percent less Democratic than their parents. By 1984, among the post-new Deal generation of Catholics, Republicans outnumbered Democrats; they were more likely to vote, and they were more likely to vote for their party's nominee. These voters were the Catholic margin for Reagan and Bush. And they could be a big part of the Republican party of the future. Many are found in the South, where they have migrated from New England or the upper Midwest in search of economic opportunity. Catholic post-boomers (the so-called Generation X) are every bit as Republican as Southern evangelical Protestants. Although it appears that Bill Clinton stanched the flow of young Catholics to the Republican party in 1992, that is primarily because of the massive movement of young Catholic women to him and the counter-movement of young Catholic men to Perot.

Does religion make people more Republican?

Some political scientists have made much of the finding that "more religious" people are likely to favor the Republicans. Typically their analyses use church attendance rates, or some measure of religious salience, the extent to which one considers religion important as a guide for daily life. Some leaders of the Christian Coalition see the potential here for political alliances among the "deeply religious," whether mainline Protestant, evangelical Protestant, of Catholic. The assumption seems to be that the Republicans, more traditional positions on abortion, homosexuality, school prayer, and family values are what attract the deeply religious, including Catholics. It is time to take a good look at this argument.

Republican party identification is much stronger among post-new Deal Catholics than among the New Deal generation, but church attendance is much lower among the younger group. Table 1 on page 14 presents a striking contrast. (It is based on the American National Election Studies, which have less of the over-sampling and over-reporting of religious activity hidden in Gallup telephone polls or election-day exit polls.)

                             Table 1

                          MASS ATTENDANCE BY
                   CATHOLIC POLITICAL GENERATIONS

                    New Deal              Post-New Deal
                    1988    1992        1988         1992
Every Week          51%     53%         23%          23%
Some Each Month     18      17          25           30
Seldom or Never     31      30          52           47
  Totals            100%    100%        100%         100%
(Number of Cases)  (135)    (187)       (193)        (241)

(Source: American National Election Studies, 1988, 1992)

The baby-boom generation (of white, non-Latino Catholics) did not connect with churches as closely as the generation that went through the Depression and World War ll. It was widely assumed they would do so when they married, had children, and settled down. But if the boomers have become regular churchgoers, it might well be at a nondenominational suburban megachurch, not the church of their parents. If they have connected with Catholic parishes, their attendance patterns often resemble those of mainline Protestants, not the regular attendance of younger evangelical Protestants or older Catholics. These patterns are replicated on the religious salience measure as well. The political irony here is that young, regular-attending evangelical Protestants and young, far less frequent-attending Catholics have both been attracted to the Republican party.

But isn't it the weekly Mass attenders, regardless of political generation, who identify with and support the Republican party? No.

Regular churchgoers identify as Democrats in almost identical proportions - 50 percent of the New Dealers and 52 percent of the post-New Dealers. But in actual numbers, twice as many of the older generation are Democrats. Republican strength is concentrated among the occasional church attenders, particularly in the baby-boom generation; 51 percent are Republicans, and their actual numbers are a percent greater than the regular attenders who are Republican. Even the never-attending boomers far outweigh the regular attenders in the Republican ranks - by about 72 percent. In short, N percent of younger Catholics who identify with the Republican party attend church occasionally, seldom, or never. Only 23 percent regularly attend Mass.

Apart from their party identification, do more faithful churchgoers support the Republican nominee? There is slightly more evidence for this church attendance=republican nominee equation among the older generation. But the recent picture is quite the opposite for younger voters. In the New Deal generation of regular church-attending Catholics, there was an almost even split in the Clinton and Bush votes in 1992 - 42 and 44 percent respectively - despite the 50 percent to 36 percent advantage in party identification favoring Democrats. But among young Catholics who are regular churchgoers, 46 percent voted for Clinton and only 32 percent cast their ballot for Bush. Bush's greatest strength came from young, occasional churchgoers: 44 percent chose him, only 30 percent chose Clinton, and 26 percent drifted to Perot. Once again, if one examines where the Republican votes were concentrated among young Catholics in l992, 78 percent came from those who attend church occasionally, seldom, or never. It is an enormous mistake to say that Republican support is concentrated among deeply religious Catholics. In recent elections, Democratic presidential candidates have done very well there, as well as among those of the older generation who seldom attend Mass.

Furthermore, it is an even greater mistake to assume that the family-values platform is what attracts young Catholics to the Republican party. Quite the contrary. The older generation responds to those appeals but continues to vote Democratic - even half of the weekly Mass attenders. On social issue after issue, the younger generation-specially those who vote Republican-are far more moderate than the Republican party's platform.

Consider abortion - a centerpiece of the New Majoritarian strategy designed to attract Catholics to the Republican party. (Table 2 on page 15 provides stark contrasts.) Among younger Catholics, only 6 percent embraced the Republican platform favoring the life of the fetus over the life of the mother. Over half of all younger Catholics wanted abortion to be freely available. Over, 40 percent wanted abortion limited to hard cases. Clearly, the views on abortion of young Catholics-and young Republican Catholics-contrast sharply with those of older Catholics. They are also at variance with the abortion views of the young evangelical Protestants now at the core of the Republican party.

                            Table 2

                     ABORTION ATTITUDES BY
                CATHOLIC POLITICAL GENERATIONS

                                New Deal   Post-New Deal

Outlaw abortion                    18%           6%
Abortion permitted for
rape, incest, life of mother       34            26
Abortion permitted for
other reasons                      15            16
Abortion available as
personal choice                    33            52
  Totals                           100%          100%
(Number of Cases)                  (184)         (231)

(Source: American National Election Studies, 1992)

Even using measures of church attendance and religious salience in 1992, faithful young Catholics are neither with the pope and bishops nor with the Republican party on abortion. For example, 45 percent more of the weekly church-goers want abortion freely available than want it outlawed (25 percent as opposed to 17 percent). Where the Republican strength is concentrated-among the occasional-church-attending young Catholics - only 1 percent want abortion outlawed and 4l percent want it freely available. Most older Catholics, regardless of frequency of attendance, want abortion available for tough cases, but most younger Catholics split their preferences between abortion in tough cases and ready access to abortion.

What about other parts of the cultural-issues agenda? Younger people, including those who attend Mass regularly and those who support the Republican party, are more moderate in their judgments about gays and lesbians and more supportive of gay rights than are older Catholics who support the Democratic party. They are also more tolerant of the religious fundamentalists and members of the Christian Right who are active in politics. In fact, the least tolerant are regular church-attending, older Catholics - precisely the Catholic cohort more attracted to the family-values agenda. Paradoxical? Probably not. They have lived long enough to have known the religious and political intolerance of these Protestant groups. Younger Catholics are slightly more likely to embrace public school prayer, but this modest difference is concentrated among the occasional churchgoers. Regular Mass attenders, among both the young and their elders, are cooler to the idea. Their suspicion has deep roots in American Catholicism, it was one of the reasons for the founding of Catholic parochial schools.

Economic vs. cultural politics

When we examine how Catholics rated the most important issue in recent presidential elections, we find some clues about the paradoxical voting patterns of the political generations. In both l988 and l992, regular church-attending, New Deal-generation Catholics were more likely than their younger counterparts to identify economic issues as more important than cultural issues. The less-frequent-church-attenders among younger Catholics are much more likely to list cultural issues. Far from the family-values agenda, the issues that concern them are crime, affirmative action, rights for racial minorities, immigration, and the use of tax money to benefit such people. Their worries are quite distant from the social agenda of the bishops, pastoral letters. Often these young Catholics express negative feelings about racial or ethnic issues. The men complain about too much opportunity for pushy women. These attitudes may reflect isolation from Catholic social teaching.

On most economic issues, older and younger Catholics are fairly close to each other. Interesting differences appear to be linked to the frequency of church attendance. Weekly churchgoers among older Catholics are slightly more supportive of government spending for the poor generally; weekly attenders among young Catholics overwhelmingly support government spending for the homeless. In this era of restructuring and cutbacks in government support for the poor, the strongest support for increased government spending comes among occasional churchgoers-including the young who support the Republican party.

By this point, if readers are not thoroughly confused, they are surely asking: What is it that has attracted young Catholics to the Republican party or repelled them from the Democrats? Is it the economic opportunity arguments of the Gingrich-Kemp Republican party? Not even that interpretation holds up under careful data analysis. The only evidence I can offer, other than some of this cohort's negative opinions about cultural issues, is the charismatic appeal of Ronald Reagan, who was president when the boomers and post-boomers connected with the parties. He seems to have convinced young Catholics, particularly those less exposed to church teaching, that his vision for the country and his handling of the economy were better. There are significant differences in retrospective feelings toward Reagan's handling of the economy between older and younger Catholics. Those younger Catholics who overwhelmingly approved of his economic policies were those who occasionally, seldom, or never went to church. Older Catholics were evenly split regardless of their level of religious involvement. By 1992, George Bush had frittered away that advantage; many young Catholic men defected to Perot and many young Catholic women settled on Clinton. The man who had brought them to the Republican party was gone and they were lifting anchor.

Young Catholic women

While young Catholic men, like some of their fathers, generation, have been attracted to the Republicans, stances on affirmative action, women's rights, crime, etc., young Catholic women are increasingly pulled to the Democrats. A fundamental economic revolution accounts for this. Young Catholic women are the least likely of any Christian group to be full-time housewives. In twenty short years, the proportion of Catholic women who are housewives has dropped from 48 percent to only 16 percent. It has plunged for Protestants too, with only 21 percent of evangelical Protestant women and 22 percent of mainline Protestant women remaining outside the labor force. But there are differences.

More than a generation ago, Catholic women began receiving higher educations at rates higher than the general public. A much larger proportion of Catholic women than of evangelical women are in professional and managerial occupations. Currently the gender gap is closing in these ranks; 47 percent of all professional and managerial jobs are filled by women. The income gap is closing, too. Instead of earning 71 cents on every dollar that a man earns, women in professional and managerial ranks earn 9O cents on the dollar. Men no longer have a huge advantage over women in the economy. Affirmative-action and equal-pay policies have reduced labor-market discrimination. It should come as no surprise that younger white men, including Catholics, are mobilized by Republican wedge-issue appeals. Or that women, including Catholics, are drawn increasingly to the Democratic side. Women have developed a political voice different from that of men.

1996: The year of reckoning?

The Grim Reaper is claiming the New Deal generation. In l968, when the first group of the baby-boom generation entered the electorate, 74 percent of all Catholic voters were still from the New Deal generation. Twenty years later, when George Bush gained a majority among Catholics who identified with a political party, only 39 percent of the Catholic electorate was from the New Deal generation, a loss of half of that Democratic and faithfully Catholic generation. That is why Republicans smile about the future of the Catholic vote. But the celebration may be premature maybe even for l996

None of the generation that claimed to be the true heirs of Ronald Reagan - Jack Kemp, Patrick Buchanan, Dan Quayle, Newt Gingrich, Bill Bennett - won the Republican presidential nomination. Instead, Bob Dole, a career politician who was in Washington while Ronald Reagan was still in Hollywood, is the current hope of the party. And the party has moved a long way to the right of the historic Senator Dole and Governor Reagan. When the New Majoritarians first tried to attract Catholics and evangelicals to the Republican fold, they had no idea that there would be a massive realignment of evangelicals, who now control a majority of Republican state party organizations, or that the generation of Catholics most attracted to the party would be cultural moderates or liberals, not conservatives.

They also had no idea that Catholics would pay less attention to the advice of their religious leaders than evangelicals pay to theirs. Our research routinely shows that evangelical Protestants are the religious group most likely to be aware of political cues from their leaders; Catholics are far less likely to be similarly aware, and mainline Protestants least likely. Work by Lyman Kellstedt on the 1994 Congressional elections tells a compelling story. Forty-three percent of church-going evangelicals felt their church leaders were advising them how to vote, 71 percent went to the polls, and 94 percent of these voters selected the Republican candidate. That is a kept flock. You probably would have to go to New York City's Irish parishes over a century ago to find anything like it among Catholics. Evangelicals and the Christian Coalition say to Republicans: We can deliver and we have the track record to prove it. That is both the opportunity and the problem that Dole faces in 1996.

Dole's political experts know that previous Republican candidates have reached about all the Catholic Democratic crossover voters of the New Deal generation that they can. President Clinton's veto of the partial-birth abortion act may attract a few more. But abortion is only one item in the Republican effort to paint Bill and Hillary Clinton as the full-grown progeny of the 1972 Democratic convention: Remember the party of amnesty, acid, and abortion? Dole has to reach the Republican-leaning, post-New Deal Catholics who are far more moderate (permissive, depending on one's perspective) on the social issues. How can he do it and keep the Republican foot soldiers of the Religious Right loyal? The yea-long struggle to moderate the abortion plank, and the Republican convention's avoidance of anti-abortion rhetoric, were symptomatic of this dilemma.

Dole's selection of Jack Kemp as his running mate was a major effort to slip between the horns of that dilemma. Kemp is a genuine born-again Christian dating to the 1960s, long before other politicians grasped its political mileage. He is anti-abortion. That keeps the evangelical foot-soldiers marching. But most important for Dole, Kemp was a seer of the "opportunity society's" vision of the economy who still recognized the need for substantial social and educational spending. This resonates with young Catholics. The problem for Dole was that he did not like Kemp and thought that supply-side economics was wacky. The first law of politics, however, is to get what you can and tolerate what you must. Bob Dole knows whose votes he needs to move into 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. Kemp is not just the driver but the van line for young Catholics.

Another effort to slip between the horn of the dilemma was to choose a prochoice but economically conservative Catholic member of the House as keynote speaker. A swiftly rising star, divorced, remarried, and a mother, Susan Molinari of Staten Island, New York, was one of the few available Republican women who could appeal to this critical part of the post-new Deal generation of Catholics. Dole cannot afford a hemorrhage of younger Catholic professional and managerial women to Clinton. Molinari is known for championing Republican policies that would help small business, where recent starts are disproportionately by younger women.

A friend of mine calls this the "secular Catholic" strategy. When social issues predominate and the language gets strident, young Catholic voters move to the Democrats. When that language can be muted, so that appeals to economic opportunity are heard, young Catholic voters move to the Republicans. In this strategy, if the bishops castigate Clinton on abortion or Gingrich-Dole on welfare, it probably won't penetrate to younger Catholics as effectively as the campaigners, own appeals. This has got to be maddening to the bishops, but they must continue to do what they do: offer thoughtful statements about religion and democracy and about the full-range of moral issues in the campaign, while avoiding even the appearance of partisanship.

There have been increasing efforts to unite evangelicals and Catholics under the Republican tent. To recruit Catholics, the Christian Coalition set up a special organization that appropriated Catholic labels-the League of Catholic Voters and the Catholic Alliance. Parish lists have been used for direct mail appeals that give the appearance of common interests. Ralph Reed, executive director of the Christian Coalition, has quoted selectively from social-science research that shows common political interests. But other research by Ted Jelen shows that parts of the evangelical coalition don, t trust Catholics any more than they trust Jews or atheists. And the bishops are not about to turn over their teaching authority to Pat Robertson, Ralph Reed, or to the Catholics among the coalition's executives and volunteers.

Given these facts, why are the press and politics paying so much attention to catholics in 1996 - especially a "secular Catholic" strategy is the one most likely to yield vote? My research shows that the importance of Catholics as Catholics in the electorate has diminished since 1960. In 1960, 41 per cent of all adults were mainline Protestants, and 17 percent of voters were active churchgoers from mainline Protestant bodies. By 1992, these figures had shrunk to 22 percent and 4 percent. The mainline is the sideline. but active Catholic churchgoers have not filled this vacuum. In 1960, non-Latino, white Catholics were 18 percent of the adult population but, like mainline Protestants, regular churchgoing Catholics were 17 percent of the voters. By 1992, they had grown to 20 percent of the population but had shrunk to 8 percent of the electorate. (Latino Catholics who regularly attend Mass are still less than 2 percent of the electorate.) Who has filled the vacuum? Evangelical Protestant who attend church regularly are 10 percent of the voters and unchurched Americans are 15 percent. The power to define the American political agenda has shifted from centrist religious groups of evangelical Protestants and secularists. Therein is found much of the current story of American elections and the so-called "culture wars."

If there is a Catholic story in 1996 it will not be found among the faithful Mass-goers of the dying New Deal generation, but in the less-involved younger Catholics who have little in common with other religious groups now prominent in the Republican party.

Electoral college politics

So then, are Catholics important in 1996, or not? Yes, because presidential elections are won and lost in the electoral college. Since 1980, every Republican has entered the election with about a 200-vote bonus. The South, parts of the Midwest, and the Mountain states are not likely to go Democrat. Thus Democrats must scare up @M of the remaining 326 electoral votes. This is possible if the winner takes all the electoral votes in California, Texas, Florida, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Illinois, and Michigan. Success also requires some erosion among the smaller states in the Republican phalanx. The contested states are also the states with Catholic pluralities.

Evangelicals will stay with the Republican nominee; 4O percent of all voters have disliked the Clintons from December 1992 on, and many are evangelicals. Evangelicals are the core of the contemporary Republican party and they have displaced mainline Protestants in the party leadership. Blacks, Jews, and non-cuban Hispanics will remain Democratic. Secularists will split, opting for the Democrats if social issues get strident and for the Republicans or Perot if economic prosperity is threatened. The mystery - beyond the size of the election-day turnout in each group - is with post-new Deal Catholics, a Republican-leaning group. They hold the balance of power. It is not Catholic leaders who will deliver them by the reiteration of profound social teachings, but opportunistic pollsters and political advisers who understand a generation that is not tightly woven into the church. A little nudge in turnout here, a little defection there, will make all the difference in the outcome. Clinton turned this complex Catholic mosaic to his advantage in l992, but he is less likely to benefit from a Perot hemorrhage of Republican voters in 1996.

The campaigners will use every Catholic symbol they can - from school vouchers to school uniforms, from the family fallout caused by corporate down-sizing to the threat to the safety net for the poor and elderly. Aiming at younger Catholics, Dole will look as Reaganesque as he can-announcing a tax-cut plan while promising a balanced budget is as authentically Reagan as you can get. And he has Kemp. In an effort to retain young Catholic women and maybe pull a few men, Democrats will hammer at the loss of free choice on abortion and float the specter of an evangelical theocracy. Democrats will remind women of the limited opportunity for economic advancement before affirmative-action and equal-pay policies became law.

Have yourself some fun. Keep a list of every issue in the campaign. Ask: Is that a symbol of something Catholics hold dear, or one they reject? Is the appeal aimed at reinforcing the New Dealers or at attracting the post-new Dealers? What appeals will more effectively court young Catholic women? Which appeals are aimed at the fears of men? Who is using Reagan nostalgia most effectively - Dole, Kemp, or even Clinton? In which states do the big campaign advertisement buys occur and which themes appear in the ads@ When someone else campaigns with the candidates in the crucial states, what kinds of Catholics do they hope to attract? Answering these questions will give you a pretty comprehensive outline of the campaign discourse in election 1996. And you might even have an interesting voter guide.

David C. Leege is professor of government and international studies and director of the Program for Research on Religion, Church, and Society at the University of Notre Dame. He directed the Notre Dame Study of Catholic Parish Life and is co-author of Rediscovering the Religious Factor in American Politics. He is completing a book on the politics of cultural differences that examines U.S. elections from 1960 to 1992.