TALL MEN WON'T BE VOTING FOR HIM EITHER:

It’s About Abortion, Stupid: And other moral issues. Why John Kerry has trouble making the moral argument (Melinda Henneberger, Sept. 24, 2004, Newsweek)

The Democrats are likely to lose the Catholic vote in November—and John Kerry could well lose the election as a result. It’s about abortion, stupid. And “choice,” make no mistake, is killing the Democratic Party.

A recent Zogby poll shows that in key battleground states including Minnesota, Iowa, Wisconsin, New Hampshire and Pennsylvania, Catholic voters are far more likely than the general public to vote for President George W. Bush over Kerry. In Minnesota, for instance, 60 percent of Catholics say they’ll go for Bush, versus 44 percent of all Minnesotans.

Zogby's Fritz Wenzel told the Catholic News Service he sees these numbers as a reflection of Catholic “concern about the legitimacy of the war in Iraq being overridden by ongoing discomfort with Kerry’s stand on abortion.”

It’s telling that the numbers only started to break that way in midsummer, after heavy news coverage of the debate over whether pro-choice Catholics (John Kerry, for instance. Oh, and John Kerry) were fit to receive communion.

Catholics overwhelmingly disagreed with the idea of turning anyone away from the communion rail. But the whole wafer watch, as one priest I know called it, did serve a purpose. The handful of bishops who raised the issue reminded voters that Kerry is “personally opposed” to abortion, whatever that means, but votes in favor of abortion rights. And that, of course, was the whole point.

Had to be the same geniuses who thought that being a vet would insulate the Senator from his anti-American national security record who thought that being a putative Catholic would get him the Catholic vote.

Posted by Orrin Judd at September 28, 2004 10:30 PM