Did Catholics support Santorum on caucus night?
With Rick Santorum's surprising late surge in Iowa, the uber-Catholic and social conservative du jour is now at the center of national attention. Given the prominence of Rick Santorum's Catholic faith and the importance of faith voters to the Iowa caucus, I decided to run the numbers on Rick Santorum's near victory last night and see how well he performed in heavily Catholic counties. The results were surprising.
Rick Santorum proudly wears Catholicism on his sleeve despite having multiple positions that are contrary to Catholic teaching (hat tip John Gehring at Faith in Public Life). For example, to win the heart of pro-life voters, Santorum famously cried when he retold a story on the campaign trail about how he and his family grieved over a dead fetus that was still born.
And veteran Iowa caucus campaigner Joe Trippi underscored just how important Catholics were to Santorum's success. Reporting on FoxNews.com on the eve of the Iowa caucus, Trippi's top suggestion was: “Watch Dubuque: The county in the northeast corner of the state is heavily Catholic and an area Romney scored well in four years ago. If Rick Santorum isn’t winning here it means the Santorum surge isn’t real or isn’t big enough to matter. The state is 23% Catholic – if Santorum, a pro-life Catholic himself, consolidates the Catholic vote in Dubuque and elsewhere the Iowa surprise could be a Santorum win.”
So how did the Catholic community perform for Santorum on caucus night? Not so well if you look at the numbers.
If you take the the 25 most Catholic counties in the state of Iowa and compare them with the 25 counties that Rick Santorum performed the best in, you will find that only five of these counties are counties that Santorum carried by a wide margin. Conversely, of the 25 counties that Santorum did the worst in, 9 are heavily Catholic counties. On top of this, Dubuque, the most Catholic county in the State of Iowa – as pointed out by Trippi- was won by Mitt Romney with 31% of the vote.
So what to make of this? If you substitute Evangelical for Catholic, the numbers are more telling. Of the top 25 counties that Santorum carried, 10 are heavily Evangelical. Of the 25 worst counties for Santorum, only 2 are heavily Evangelical. Clearly Evangelicals were a more important constituency to Santorum's surge and help explain why the candidate felt he could take positions late in the campaign that were clearly contrary to positions of the Catholic Church on Mercury pollution and immigration policy. Furthermore, Santorum's mediocre performance within Catholic counties underscores just how multivariate the Catholic vote really is. Many Catholic voters do not respond well to culturally divisive wedge issues like abortion and gay marriage. Surely many Catholic voters in Iowa chose to stay home or caucus with the more moderate and pro-choice candidate Mitt Romney.
So as the Catholic far-right celebrates Santorum's near victory in Iowa, they can not honestly claim that the Catholic community was the driving force behind his recent surge.
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Catholic Voting
"...Santorum's mediocre performance within Catholic counties underscores just how multivariate the Catholic vote really is."
I don't know whether "the Evangelical vote" also has its own complexity, but I agree with TomB that there is (and used to be) a difference of religious style between Protestants and Catholics. Or to phrase it more precisely in his words, "This is still a more Protestant country than a lot of contemporary Catholics seem to realize."
Unfortunately, while we may no longer distiguish greatly our different styles, we also seem to get our Catholic social teaching muddled or simplified in the grinding down process of social values and social values voters.
What's amazing to me is that there seems to be a side itching for a culture war (which I don't think can be won by either side), but a reticence to deal with class conflict(s) despite economic issues usually heavily favoring this side.
Santoroum
James raises what I think is a larger issue, matters of religious style. At Catholic mens' gatherings lately I often have a feeling of one of the Baptist assemblies I used to cover in Kentucky. There's lot of "praise and exalt," swaying while praying and muttering "thank you, Jesus." Now, there's nothing wrong with that. Cursillo and Catholic pentecostals do it. But they don't wear baseball caps saying, "God is my umpire." Or didn't used to. There used to be, IMHO, a Catholic suspicion of expressed enthusiasm. (Where have you gone, Msgr. Knox?) Catholic gatherings used to be more restrained. If it was as solemn as Thomas Aquinas, it was he Knights of Columbus sports dinner. If it was hooting and hollering a la Elmer Gantry, you were in the wrong pew. We knew that then. Catholics don't seem to know that now.
I am talking about a matter of style, not politics or theology. But my question is, can politics follow the style, rather than the other way around? I cringe at individualistic "Me and Jesus" theology when it is expressed with enthusiasm by fellow Catholics, but that is what a lot of the steet level theology of the Church seems to have become in the United States. This is still a more Protestant country than a lot of contemporay Catholics seem to realize. When we dress like them, sing like them and praise Jesus like them, why wouldn't we vote like them? Or am I just an old coot?
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