Deal Hudson: Time Mag. Poll on Catholic Vote

WASHINGTON, DC (Inside Catholic) - A new TIME poll shows Obama and McCain running almost even among Catholic voters (McCain 46% to Obama 45%).

Amy Sullivan interprets the poll results as good news for Obama, but I disagree. Obama has been enjoying such adoring media coverage, and so many stories have been written about religious conservative voters changing their issue preferences -- that Obama is still in a dead-heat with McCain is not good news for him.

Another aspect of Sullivan's TIME story is the focus it places on Doug Kmeic, the Catholic pro-life jurist, who has endorsed Obama. Sullivan uses Kmiec to represent what she sees as a drift of Catholic voters toward the Democratic Party and Obama.

Sullivan sees Kmiec representing a group of voters she calls "Obama Republicans" in contrast to the "Reagan Democrats." That's actually a rather nifty way of looking at Obama's Catholic effort. (She, however, gets the name wrong of the RNC effort to court Catholic voters. She calls it the "Catholic Task Force," but it was renamed "RNC Catholic Outreach" in 1999.)

Sullivan also predicts that Catholics are in a "climate" where they "aren't voting based on a rather narrow ideological agenda."

The trouble with this description is simple: That's not how voters who view life, marriage, and family as the most important issues understand their own political concerns. There is nothing "narrow" or "ideological" about it, from their point of view.

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