Mark Shields: Dems doing worst to lose 'Catholic vote'

WASHINGTON (Creators Syndicate, Inc.) -- When Tim Russert, the enormously fair-minded host of "Meet the Press," described the working-class Buffalo neighborhood where he grew up as the kind of place where you were "baptized a Catholic and born a Democrat," I knew what he meant.

Even I had to admit, however, that best-selling author Father Andrew Greeley was being just outrageously provocative in "Furthermore! Memories of a Parish Priest," when he wrote that to vote Republican could be a sin, before charitably adding that such a 'sinner' would be free of any moral culpability because of invincible ignorance.

Long gone are elections like the Democratic victories of 1960 and 1964, when three out of four Catholics voted for co-religionist John F Kennedy and then nearly four out of five Catholics backed Baptist Lyndon B Johnson. Republican Ronald Reagan twice carried the Catholic vote, as did George H.W. Bush in 1988. Democrat Bill Clinton twice won the Catholic vote.

The winning candidate had carried the Catholic vote in every presidential election since 1972 until two years ago, when Democrat Al Gore won a majority of Catholics against George W. Bush. Obviously, Catholic ties to the Democratic Party have been weakened, but they have not been replaced by strengthened ties to the GOP.

Catholics remain a critical swing vote, especially for Democrats. Much has been written about the gender gap and how women voters support Democrats over Republicans. But in 2000, Al Gore -- while running only 12 points better among women than he did among men -- ran 20 percent better among Catholics (53 percent) than he did among white Protestants (33 percent).

But in a deliberate act of political bigotry, the Democratic National Committee is daily telling Catholic voters to get lost. Do you think I exaggerate? Then go to the Democratic National Committee website. There you will finds "links of interest from the Democratic National Committee."

If your interests include the environment or veterans or Gay and Lesbian or Jewish-American or pro-choice or African-American, the DNC will happily suggest dozens of places for you to spend time. There is under "Catholic" only one Democratic Party-endorsed site to visit: the absolutely unflinching champions of abortion on demand, "Catholics for a Free Choice."

How offensive is this? Well, what would be the reaction if the only DNC-recommended site under Jewish-American (there are 13, including the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) and the Jewish Forward newspaper) was "Jews for Jesus?" Or if Native Americans were directed to the "Little Beaver" and Tonto library? Beyond the insensitivity is the ignorance. Does anybody at Democratic Party headquarters know that polling, for the past half century, has consistently shown that Catholics -- on issues from health care to workers rights to the environment and civil rights -- are consistently more liberal than are Protestants?

Does anyone there even know of the U.S. Catholic Conference, which speaks for the voiceless, defends the needy, protects the earth, works for peace, welcomes the immigrant and reminds us all that when nearly one out of five American children lives in poverty and when 43 million of our fellow citizens are without health coverage, the moral measure of our society and our nation must be how fare "the least among us."

It does make you wonder if any national Democrat even bothered to read the Los Angeles Times national exit poll taken on Election Day 2000, which found that 14 percent of the electorate -- that translates into14.7 million live voters -- named abortion as the most important issue in deciding their presidential vote.

That same group of voters chose Bush over Gore by 58 percent to 41 percent, which translates into a Bush advantage on the abortion issue of 2.5 million votes in an election in which Gore nationally won 540,000 more votes.

The editor of Commonweal, Margaret O'Brien Steinfels -- a cradle Catholic- Democrat -- probably spoke for legions when she wrote, "I can't bring myself to touch the Republican lever ... (but) I find it increasingly difficult to pull the Democratic lever."

Uncritical, unrestricted access to abortion for all has become the litmus test for the national Democratic Party. The DNC may be run by single-issue voters. But Catholics, as they have shown to the consternation of conservatives time and again, are anything but single-issue voters. Will any national Democratic leader have the decency and the intelligence to apologize to Catholic voters for the Democratic National Committee's insults? I wonder.