How Many Catholic Voters For Obama Will Switch in 10 and 12?

I say a lot!! In fact looking at the link below it the GOP might get the highest percentage of Catholic vote they ever have. More on that below.

The Washington Post has a incredible article on meeting the President has with Senate Democrats. See Obama dismisses Blanche Lincoln's plea to be more centrist


The pivotal moment came when Sen. Blanche Lincoln of deep-red Arkansas, a centrist who’s on her way to defeat in November, practically begged the president to repudiate “extreme” liberals -- a clear reference to the Nancy Pelosi-led House -- and tack to the center. Arguing that the Democrats’ ambitious legislative agenda was sowing job-destroying “uncertainty” in the business community, she asked: “Are we willing as Democrats to push back on our own party?”
Obama’s reply, in a nutshell: Sorry, Blanche.

If the price of certainty is essentially for us to adopt the exact same proposals that were in place for eight years leading up to the biggest economic crisis since the Great Depression -- we don’t tinker with health care, let the insurance companies do what they want, we don’t put in place any insurance reforms, we don’t mess with the banks, let them keep on doing what they’re doing now because we don’t want to stir up Wall Street -- the result is going to be the same. I don’t know why we would expect a different outcome pursuing the exact same policy that got us into this fix in the first place.

But the president is not only against a centrist shift on policy grounds; he also thinks it is a political loser:

If our response ends up being, you know, because we don’t want to -- we don’t want to stir things up here, we’re just going to do the same thing that was being done before, then I don’t know what differentiates us from the other guys. And I don’t know why people would say, boy, we really want to make sure that those Democrats are in Washington fighting for us.

Two things struck me as extraordinary about Obama’s reply.
The first was the ease with which he cast Lincoln’s plea for a bit more centrism as a call for a return to Bushism -- the “exact same proposals that were in place for the last eight years.” That’s not what she was advocating; it’s not what any Democrat who’s questioning his approach is advocating. But the president set up this strawman, and he pummeled it, rather than engaging Lincoln’s valid concerns.
The second striking thing was how easily he appeared to write off Lincoln politically. Conceding nothing, he implied that her defeat was not only a foregone conclusion, but also an acceptable price to pay for staying the course on policy. To be sure, maybe the whole thing was just kabuki -- Lincoln standing up to the president for the benefit of the folks back home who don’t like him, and Obama obligingly playing his part. But it sure looked pretty spontaneous to me.

Read the whole thing.

To me this is breathtaking. We truly have an inexperienced ego in the White House that is beyond what many people thought.

You just can't write off the Blanche Lincolns of the world. More importantly you can't write off the democrats that vote for the Blanche Lincoln's of the world. One can imagine Senator Webb of VA who is up for election in 2012 having increasing nightmares.

It gets worse. This a critical year because of the census. This filters down there too. What should have been a good year setting the tone for democrat friendly redistricting could be become a disaster. You just cannot give the Presidential finger to the moderate and conservative wing of the Dem party and expect good results.

So expect a full blown Jacksonian belt disaster for the democrats if President Obama continues down this path.

How does this affect the Catholic vote? The largely still Northeastern based media still is in large denial over the demographic shifts in this Country. This includes the Catholic population. The old bastions of Catholic populaton have shifted from the North to the Mid south, South, and West. Places like Detroit will continue to decline while places like Texas and Georgia will gain Catholic influence.

Now there has been a interesting dynamic going on for years. These Yankee Catholics have for a couple of generations been interacting with the their southern Jacksonian voters and neighbors. Both groups will have affects on each other. However in realty the differences have not been much. These groups are both Reagan Democrats and Bill Clinton Democrats. Both groups have been trending to GOP like voting patterns for some time. The Democrat party can not just write off these vast areas of the country.

Out West from Texas and beyond we shall see similar problem. The only hope is that if the Democrats can keep their 2006 and 2008 Latino numbers. If the GOP runs smart people out there that target that demographic well the game is over.

What about all those "liberal" Catholics? Well they are either dying out or have remained largely in States that have shedding population at a amazing rate. The exception being perhaps part of the West Coast. Plus if Obama lets his moderate/conservative wing of the Dem party die how is there any hope that any part the Catholic progressive agenda they all want so badly will get through? This will also depress liberal Catholic turnout.

Despite Obama winning the Catholic vote in 2008 there is much more to the story. John McCain actually made gains with Catholics in several States where they were targeted. Including that important State of Pennsylvania that is very Jacksonian.

But what about the African American component? That is the real question. Obama has very little room here for error. African American voter turnout was like nothing we ever saw in the 2008 election. It was what pushed States like North Carolina into the Obama corner. It will be difficult to duplicate that in 2010 and even 2012. Right now in Louisiana I am seeing African Americans not jazzed at all over the likely Democrat nominee to oppose David Vitter. Is this occurring nationwide? Is it happening in Missouri, Illinois, etc etc.

Also we have yet to see if one effect of having the "First Black President" will be that African American voters might say "Ok we now can feel free to look elsewhere besides the democrats". I don't expect this to be a huge shift if it happens by just a few percentage points it will have massive results.

Regardless if President Obama is serious about sacrificing the Lincolns and Webbs of the world then we shall see some massive voter shifts in the next two election cycles.