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McCain making quiet play for Catholic vote: Quiet courtship part of a broader effort to win religious voters (WAYNE SLATER, March 31, 2008, The Dallas Morning News)

"If he can get Catholics and evangelicals together in a coalition, that would make him very difficult to defeat," said political scientist Mark Rozell of George Mason University.

Mr. McCain's plan to win the White House includes an appeal to Christian conservatives, long a crucial GOP voting bloc, as well as to more moderate independent voters and so-called "Reagan Democrats," many of them Catholic.

It's a formula that has worked in the past. In 2004, nearly 80 percent of white, evangelical Protestants voted for President Bush. He also got a majority of Catholics, which he failed to do four years earlier. [...]

This year, the Arizona senator won the Catholic vote in most GOP primaries, including Texas, according to exit polls. And his campaign has announced the names of 100 prominent Catholics as part of a group headed by former GOP presidential candidate Sen. Sam Brownback.

"Sen. McCain is a natural for Catholics in a lot of ways," said Rob Wasinger, who was Mr. Brownback's campaign manager. "He's pro-life and for traditional marriage. But he goes to a lot of issues that Catholics feel very strongly about, issues that reflect a deeper sense of social justice and human rights."

Meanwhile, his opponent is talking about aborting his own grandchildren.

Posted by Orrin Judd at March 31, 2008 4:18 PM