John Baer: Can the Catholic vote predict the election’s outcome?

My only prayer for next week’s election is that it ends with a winner.

I say this because of the threat of an unresolved result, an Electoral College tie.

That would set the stage for (pick one) arm-twisting, blackmailing or bribing electors to change their votes on or before meeting Dec. 17, or House/Senate action in January producing a Romney/Biden administration.

As you no doubt know, an Electoral College tie goes to Congress, where the new House, presumably Republican, picks the president, while the new Senate, presumably Democratic, picks the vice president.

Would that make anyone happy? I mean, other than comedy writers?

So, I hope and pray that next Tuesday, Romney or Obama wins outright; and what better place for hope and prayer than within the Catholic vote?

Perhaps there lies a read on a likely winner.

Catholics, after all, are bellwether voters. There are lots of them (an estimated 47 million voted in 2008). They represent almost one-fourth of all registered voters. And they vote in higher proportion than non-Catholics.

They’re important to both parties: Obama carried Catholics in ’08 (54-45), and Bush did in ’04 (52-47) even though John Kerry’s Catholic.

In the last 10 presidential elections, whoever won Catholics won nine times. The sole exception was Al Gore in 2000. He won Catholics and the popular vote (by 543,000) but lost the Electoral College.

I’m not suggesting that Catholics vote as a bloc. They don’t. [more]

SOURCE

Philadelphia Daily News