Ed Kilgore has very interesting post about Tim Kaine over at Progressive Revival. Ed makes a persuasive case about why the Virginia governor would be an excellent running mate for Obama (he's now considered a leading candidate). Ed cites Kaine's facility with faith lingo and positioning.
Here's the puzzling part. Ed assumes that Kaine's Catholicism will help him win Catholics. But the Catholic John Kerry did worse among Catholics than the Baptist Al Gore did. So being Catholic obviously isn't sufficient.
My first impulse would be to say that it needs to be a pro-life Catholic. But then again the majority of Catholics are actually pro-choice!
In other words, it's utterly mysterious to me what actually moves the Catholic vote.
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The catholic vote is really just an ''ethnic vote'' per excellence.
Remember the recent WYD, there were flags from dozens of different countries representing a very large number of ethnic groups and nationalities.
The candidate who wins the Catholic vote is just the one who can win over all the different ethnic groups in his favor, not just the ''latino'' vote.
However, there is a small group of ''hard-core'' pro-Vatican catholics who are very influential within the Church at large. The are very pro-life and would prefer an evangelical McCain over an ethnic Obama because the former has indicated that he is morally opposed to abortion.
My experience of Catholics in Pennsylvania is that they are dead set on voting for a pro life candidate. Barack Obama REALLY wants to win Pennsylvia and Kaine may be the person to help out.
In the long run, though, I really believe that this race is about racism. Is the average American ready to vote for a black man.....
Does a Catholic VP candidate win over Cathoics? Not necessarily.
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