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 Mitt Romney, left, won more Ohio Catholics on Tuesday than Rick Santorum.
March 7th, 2012
03:53 AM ET
Loudly Catholic Santorum loses Ohio CatholicsBy Dan Gilgoff, CNN.com Religion Editor (CNN) - Rick Santorum, a conservative Catholic who is outspoken about faith-based issues, lost Catholic voters by a wide margin in Ohio on Tuesday, potentially a key factor that allowed Mitt Romney to squeak out the narrowest of victories overall in the state. According to CNN’s exit polls, Romney took 43% of Ohio Catholics on Super Tuesday, compared to 31% for Rick Santorum, and Romney beat Santorum overall by 38% to 37%. Read how Santorum fared Tuesday Catholic voters accounted for a third of Ohio’s Republican electorate, the largest share of Catholics in any Super Tuesday state. Delegate tracker | Delegate calculator “The margin of Romney's win among Ohio Catholics is surprising, given Santorum's traditional Catholicism,” says John Green, a political science professor at the University of Ohio. “Romney's margin among Ohio Catholics - especially in the three largest metropolitan areas - may account for his close win in Ohio.” Green notes that Romney, a Mormon, has consistently won the Catholic vote in this year’s Republican primaries. That pattern runs counter to speculation that Catholics would focus more on hot-button issues at a time when Catholic bishops are battling the Obama White House over government-mandated contraception coverage. Get the latest news on Santorum's campaign Romney has denounced the Obama administration’s contraception rule but Santorum has gone further, making social issues a cornerstone of his campaign. Last week, the former Pennsylvania senator said that John F. Kennedy’s 1960 speech in which the then-presidential candidate advocated an absolute separation of church and state nearly made him throw up. The Catholic vote is one of the largest swing blocs in the country, voting for the winning presidential candidates from both parties in recent elections. But the bloc is so diverse, including many Catholics who differ with church leaders on social issues and many who have drifted from the church, that many religious and political experts dismiss any notion of a “Catholic vote.” Read how Santorum plans to fight to the end In Ohio, the most contested of the 10 states to cast ballots on Tuesday, Catholics represented one of GOP primary’s main constituencies. Another major bloc, white evangelicals, comprised almost half of the Ohio vote, and broke for Santorum over Romney by 47% to 30%. One progressive Catholic group made political hay out of Santorum’s weak showing among Ohio Catholics, emailing reporters a statement titled “Santorum campaigns on divisive wedge issues, promptly loses Catholic vote.” Five things we learned from Super Tuesday “Catholic voters care more about economic issues that affect their families than they do about socially divisive wedge issues like contraception,” said James Salt, executive director of Catholics United, in the statement. “Mainstream Catholics want leaders who can address the moral challenges of our day like income inequality, underwater mortgages and poverty,” Salt continued, “not leaders who perpetuate a never-ending culture war that divides our community.”
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The CNN Belief Blog covers the faith angles of the day's biggest stories, from breaking news to politics to entertainment, fostering a global conversation about the role of religion and belief in readers' lives. It's edited by CNN's Daniel Burke with contributions from Eric Marrapodi and CNN's worldwide news gathering team.  |
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"Loudly Catholic" Santorum as opposed to "Loudly Mormon" Romney, or "Loudly anti-Catholic" Obama? C'mon CNN ... you gotta be better than that.
BTW ... what about the remaining percentage of the Catholic vote in Ohio? Where did they go? Gingrich? Paul? Perhaps. And perhaps if this was between only Santorum and Romney they would have gone with Santorum. Did CNN even bother to think about that?
Romney rarely mentions that he is Mormon. However, Santorum is always going on about his relgion and comping up with the idea that he should put laws into place that impact everybody based on what the Catholic faith says.
We've seen Romney in action in MA. He never inst-ituted anything that was based off of his religious beliefs. If so, while he was there he would have attempted to outlaw caffeine, cigarettes, and alcohol. You can bet your behind that if Santorum were a Mormon instead of Catholic, he would be pushing for those kinds of laws and bemoaning the evil of them.
I despise Romney but this is one area where he certainly is much better than Santorum.
Santorum is the only one left running on his religion. He doesn’t let a day go by without reminding everyone. THAT is why he is loudly-Catholic. Romney the corporate shill that he is… isn’t running on being a Mormon. Obama is in no way anti-Catholic. You are just crying victim over a healthcare bill. We are a secular nation..time to deal.
I'd like to get behind Rick Santorum and give him my solid support, but until he's more open about all the stimulus that has gone into his package, we won't know for sure that he's a real Republican and a true Catholic, no matter how oral he gets on Romney.
Santorum needs to become a clergyman, not the commander In chief.
I AGREE WITH ANN ROMNEY
I spent last evening March 6 watching NBC’s coverage of Super Tuesday and would like to thank Brian Williams, Chuck Todd, Andrea Mitchell, David Gregory and other guest commentators for providing state by state coverage. They were for the most part diligent in trying to cover each primary. Yet their anti-Romney bias came through in the analysis. Phrases were obviously slanted negatively and a person was hard pressed to find any positive comment about Mitt Romney who will oppose the President more than likely in November.
I wholeheartedly agree with Mitt’s wife Ann, they verbalize few if any positive comments about Mitt while the Democratic President and his consultants-staff are often complimented on the same telecast. An obvious bias for others than Mitt comes through to the listener.
Bias can be contrived or occur incidentally from any reporter. As an Evangelical and Republican I am biased in that I support Mitt Romney, a great candidate for the highest office in the land. I join Ann in admitting my support for Mitt while detecting media criticism for her husband, may the media admit to their bias for today’s President as well, THAT’S ONLY FAIR. WHERE IS EDWARD R. MURROW WHEN WE NEED HIM?
Alan G Phillips, Sr
Alan G, you hit the nail right on the head.
MSNBC and CNN as well as FOX all did the same thing. CNN was probably the worst with three very non Romney people on their so called panel of experts taking shot after shot against Romney. Ari Fleisher was the only one that really gave credit to Romney for winning Super Tuesday. And my point about Fleisher was confirmed when he was interrupted by the analyst named Hillary (a Democrat) who cut him off when he was saying something positive about Romney. She jumped in and said something like "go ahead and say something nice about Romney now". She highly resembled an overweight Cybil Sheppard but that is just my opinion.
Romney did fight back in Ohio and shocked Santorum who thought he had Ohio in the bag. I am sure he was surprised to say the least and should be very worried that his own Catholic faith is not backing him as the nominee. Romney won that vote 43% to 31%. OUCH
If Gingrich and Paul both drop out, Santorum will win.
I think most modern Americans understand that their church is separate from state for very good reasons. I think that most modern Americans have the common sense to know that the leaders of their respective faiths are very human, thus flawed, and really don't deserve the absolute power that religion has enjoyed in less enlightened times. I believe that Santorum is simply too radically regressive for modern Americans, who for the most part, believe in fairness and respect.
tallulah, do you find Obama to be radical? In 3 years he has managed a tremendous amount of change but left out the hope.
Actually, I think Obama is a moderate. I simply think that Republicans have forgotten the meaning of the word. They are so tied up in their own rhetoric and sense of enti.tilement, they have convinced themselves that anyone who doesn't do exactly what they want is a "radical", a "socialist" or whatever negative adjective comes into their minds.
When it comes to our freedoms being threatened by Ovomit, politics certainly makes strange bed-fellows sometimes. Who'da ever thought!
I am seeing a lot of No True Scotsman fallacies on here. Haven't seen too many ad hominem attacks though. Haven't seen too many of the spotlight fallacies either.
Catholic votes are meaningless until the Vatican stops protecting pedophile priests. It is sad that a lesbian couple can't get Communion, yet a priest who molests little boys can give it.
The body of Christ is still the body of Christ even if a corrupt priest is distributing it. However, the Church teaches that those living in a state of unrepentant sin may not receive the eucharist. If they do, they commit a sacrilege. That said, a priest witholding communion from a person in a state of sin is doing them a favor ... not punishing them.
"...those living in a state of unrepentant sin." You mean the priests that kept getting shuffled from parish to parish to re-offend? Is that what you mean by "unrepentant"?
What alarms me is the Church itself has a moral obligation to insist Rick remove them from this election.
In truth, the more Ricks values are painted as being "Catholic", the more the church is weakened.
Zealots always believe that Americans are so disengaged that they have no clue what is going on, but when push comes to shove they usually discredit religious extremists
Catholic voters don't march to the bishops' orders.
This result may be due to the fact that Catholics are thinking about the non-faith issues. I know I am. In reality, the President affects these faith-based issues very little, but affects jobs, the economy, illegal immigration, and foreign affairs very much. As a Catholic myself, Santorum is most like me, but I voted for Romney because I think he has the best chance to win in November and THAT is the end game.
No one wants to hear Santorum's "holier than thou" nonsense. Catholics don't buy his foolishness.
Santorum lives in a manner consitent with his beliefs and statements.
It is amusing to see the Feaux Catholics whining about him.
Yes many of them are CINO supporting gay marriage, contraception, and abortion rights. "CINO" it's called.
The reason Santorum is not getting the Cathlic vote has absolutely nothing to do with any of the reasons given here in these comments and everything to do with the fact that most Catholics have fallen away from the faith and the church. They have become corrupt and totally secular. So it's no great shakes that Romney won their vote it was a secular vote. But, Santorum did pretty darn good considering he's as outspoken as he is about his faith.
Or maybe they have other priorities, such as the economy.
Santorum supports some church teachings but not others, such as those on preemptive wars, economic justice, and the death penalty. Most Catholics can see the hypocrisy.
Jeanne
I love it when a Jeebus freak condemns secular values.
Someday a Muslim shall be in favor in a national election, or nominated to the supreme court and you wiill begin SCREAMING for the seperation of church and state.
Even hearing the word Aharia totaly freaks you guys out.
Imagine a candidate that SUPPORTS it! You guys would be calling for civil war.
Religion in government is fine as long as the religion is about Jeebus!
Jeanne, I believe you are right. It strikes me that the typical Catholic voter (based on what the media tells us are the results) is a hypocrite. They do not vote their "faith". They ran from the three staunchly pro-life candidates to support one that is barely a Christian and supported abortion in Massachusettes. Santorum isn't my guy by any stretch, but as a Catholic, he should have had much more appeal than he did. I support Ron Paul and am Catholic. Ron Paul has a solid pro-life record, and his positions are more in line with Catholicism than all the other candidates. Apparently WAR and statism are what Catholics believe in these days. I'm starting to lose hope in America.
How does one determine if a voter is Catholic or not when they enter to voting station? Do they have the words "Catholic Voter" written on their ID or stamped on there forehead. How many atheists, hindus and moslems vote for him? How many mormons voted for Romney? This is silly labeling because it advances some political propaganda message that Catholics don't support so and so. Divide and conquer strategy is all.
There is a God after all...
And Her name is Xenu.
FYI.."CATHOLICS UNITED" are THE "Catholic -LIGHT" , LIBERAL infusion that's infiltrating the TRUE Roman Catholic faith.
In their futile attempt to DESTROY the CHURCH, in short time, shall form the "new American Catholic Church" where
"everything goes" under the banner of: L-O-V-E (unrestricted)...where PERVERSION is perpetuated, similar to the
Roman Empire prior to its' FALL.
Indulgences for sale! Get your indulgences here - discounted - buy two get one free! Church is going to ratchet back the tolerance - buy your indulgences now before demand drives the price up! Indulgences for sale!
Really an evangelical in catholic clothing.
'I Believe in an America Where the Separation of Church and State is Absolute'. John F Kennedy
Santorum has declared openly the exact opposite.
Kenedy answered to man, not God. Santorum has it right.
I'm a Catholic and I will not support Rick Santorum.
You sound like a liberal Catholic, better known as a "cafeteria" Catholic. That's why we have Unitarians.
I'm guessing you support abortion rights, take contraceptives, and are in favor of gay marriage and don't go to confession. I hope you don't receive the Eucharist.
gerald
I hope they decide you are a witch and burn you to death.
Santorum makes most Catholics want to throw up.
At least the liberal ones that are pro-choice, pro-gay marriage, and take contraceptives. The CINOs.
Catholics didn't vote for him because they know a fraud when they see one.
Agreed. Mitt Romney's a fraud, since "Catholics" voted by a majority for Obama last, recognizing in him the True Fraud and now they find an even better True Fraud in Romney?
People who hate everything the Catholic Church teaches still self-identify to pollsters as "Catholic" when asked.
Claims about "The Catholic Vote" are by definition useless unless the pollster includes question to establish whether and to what degree the "Catholic" respondent takes his supposed religion seriously.