Bullshit. What the Catholic hierarchy advocates for and what the Catholics in the pews want are not always the same thing. The older Catholics are staunchly anti-Choice. The younger ones, not so much.

You silly person ..the point of the Politico article is to repeat a Republican Talking point and lie in an effort to get it in to the MSM where it will be repeated as a *FACT* . As a matter of fact I look forward to hearing it on Mourning Joe and Micha the wonder dog tomorrow as they present some stooge from Politico in his 6:40 am talking point. Would that they would give equal time for one of *OUR* stooges.

Not only is it different, but there are Catholics who will not admit to being pro-choice, but who will vote that way in the privacy of a voting booth.
There are man pro-choice Catholics who find this a difficult position and are not anxious to advertise it.
Also, there are pro-life Catholics who do use other metrics for their voting decisions as well.

Abortion is a moral issue. It is used as a political issue to get out the vote. No man has the right to decide if I, a female wants to have a choice.Stupak is practicing Neanderthal male thinking. In the same line as Kyl's poor consideration of women having rights!

The point of any Politico article is to "concern troll" the Democrats and make Republican ascendancy appear inevitable.

John R has it right.

It's probably also worth noting that the more Catholic the population of a given state, the more likely it is to vote Democratic in a presidential election. The most heavily Catholic region of the United States is the Northest/Middle Atlantic, which has been swept by the Dems in five straight elections. The Congressional GOP is not doing much better in the region.

LOL. You're all stoopid.

There are 65 million American Catholics and they all vote identically, you vicious religious bigots.

I'm agreeing with what everyone's saying on this point, but what I'm finding ever weirder is why the GOP and their lackeys in the press continue to push nonsensical stories like this one. Seriously, what good does it do them to embrace complete nonsense and then point to it as proof irrefutable that "teh GOP is winning!" The public option is deeply unpopular - we're going to run and win on that in 2010! Sara Palin is super popular with women - she's going to beat Obama in 2012! I understand that they want to find evidence that their worldview is embraced by a majority of Americans. But on matters where it's not, how does claiming otherwise help them win elections?

i thought the point of every "[fill in the blank]-is-bad-news-for-the-democrats" article at politico was to get linked by drudge....

on a serious note, much of the gain obama made with catholic voters came from minorities shifting...hard to imagine they'd flip back to the white persons party over this

I'm not altogether sure what the point of the Politico article even is.

Um, I see others have mentioned this, but Politico is a pro-Republican news site run by Republicans who take every opportunity to try to undermine President Obama and Democrats.

Let's not play dumb here even if the MSM does.

Have an abortion, confess, and all is forgiven. What's the problem? John R does have it right. It's called hope for change.

As a Catholic, you would really have to hold your nose to vote with the GOP. A large percentage of GOPers would pull a Major Hasan on Catholics in the right situation. That is more of a fact than what they are peddling.

pinson on November 16, 2009 at 1:33 PM

The GOP push these stories because many Democratic politicians and candidates are craven and cowardly enough to believe it. It's for the detriment of those Dems in particular more than it is the benefit of the GOP in general (though it gives them a good laugh to imagine those same weak-kneed Dems jumping through hoops to appease a bloc of voters they're probably never going to get).

Mods and indies and Dems are all hoping for some politicians who will show some character some backbone and some integrity to do the right thing. They're going to be told by the Repubs and the Fox-led contingent of the MSM that they're doing the wrong thing, it should be expected. But if they do the right thing in the face of such stupidity, the GOP will be lost for more than a generation.

Catholics officially don't allow birth control, either, but it would not be surprising if most Catholics use it. All political votes require trade-offs, and voting for stupid does not offset allowing personal choice.

You know, Steve, the bubble you inhabit on this issue reminds me of the Bush administration. Can you really be so blind? Blue-collar Catholic voters were once the bedrock of the Democratic coalition. They tend to be econically progressive and socially more conservative - like the Catholic Church itself. When you look at national polls on the abortion issue, you are missing the trends in key swing states. It is my firm belief that Kerry's position on abortion, more than anything else, lost him Ohio.

You also need to look at the generational polls. This is not gay marriage, where the generational divide is overwhelming. On abortion, the younger generation basically mirrors the old, and if anything is trending more anti-abortion. Why? Because unlike the baby boomers, they don't see abortion and part and parcel of civil rights and the sexual revolution. They see it is involving a grave injustice. Because abortion is ultimately an issue of violence - violence against the unborn. As somebody who embraces the principle of non-violence, I cannot support abortion. And yet I am as preogressive as anybody on economic and foreign policy - do people like me have any place in your world, or is your bubble intact?

No, I think the tide is turning. The Stapak amendment was the greatest pro-life victory in a generation, and it was the Democrats that did it. That makes me so proud. The party of FDR and Jack and Bobby Kennedy is not dead.

Steve,
Re:"pro-choice Catholics outnumber pro-life Catholics"; it's not 'pro-life' catholics. It's rather anti-choice catholics.

What is really funny is that Chris Matthews has been pushing this line for months. The abortion issue is going to absolutely stop health care in it's tracks and turn blue states red.

Just remember if Matthews believes it, it isn't so. I think he has wants to suck up to the bishop he has invited over to his house for Thanksgiving.

What is the point of any Politico article?

Really. There's no reason to read their crap. It's predictable, lock-step, rightist garbage.

As a Catholic (ok, barely), I can tell you that abortion is a big deal to Catholics who are probably going to vote Republican anyway. Take it off the table somehow and I doubt you see votes shifting either way.

I do believe that the social justice issues that the Church pushes (to its credit) have more traction than abortion in pushing swing voters, but that could just be my wishful thinking or the liberal world I inhabit. That's why the DC Diocese threatening to shut down social services is so disappointing to me. Also, can assure you even some Republican Catholics are tired of the gays and abortion drumbeat from the pulpit - which JP II's picks for Bishops and Archbishops only made worse.

By and large, the Catholic swing voter is probably a sub-class of the suburban swing voter.

And about birth control... My kids were in a Catholic school until last year and there just weren't a lot of families with 4 or more kids with the vast majority at 2 or 3. Not what you'd expect if most couples were strictly playing Vatican Roulette.

Morning's Minion I am waiting for all you "Catholics " to protest the war , or is it not "involving a grave injustice. Because war is ultimately an issue of violence" Take your hipocracy and save some living people.

Morning Minion,

The flaw in your thinking is that in 2004 the economy was going great guns. A lot of folks felt they could afford to vote social issues.

If you haven't noticed the economy is in the tank. Nobody in his right mind would prefer Republican economic policy to Obama's. Now if a third party emerges that has progressive economic views and a conservative social agenda, that party might go a long way, but as it stands the "you betcha" party isn't going to attract many people worried about their jobs.

It's always good news for Republicans!!!

On abortion, the younger generation basically mirrors the old, and if anything is trending more anti-abortion.

Really?

This poll from last year found about 60 percent of younger self-identified Catholics say abortion should be legal in all or most cases.

Overall, 51 percent of Catholics support legal abortion in all or most cases, while 44 percent do not.

Ah yes, it was Kerry's position on abortion that lost him Ohio, because of the rise of the anti-choice vote. If there were only some more recent elections where a pro-choice Presidential candidate won Ohio which could test that thesis, but I guess since there's not we'll just have to take your word for it.

Morning Minion, I respect your right to practice your faith and views as you wish. It is when you try to impose your world view on me that I will object.

I'm a middle-aged Catholic and if I hear any more hate speech from the bishops about abortion as opposed to support for a seamless social support network, I may resign from the Catholic church (which takes some effort)!

1. Even if younger voters "mirror" older voters in their abstract views on abortion, fewer of them (a lot fewer) base their votes wholly or primarily on the issue. So even if they are ambivalent, or opposed, it does not have the same predictive value of how they are likely to vote.

2. Abortion and the Southern strategy did have an impact on states like Ohio (no idea whether this was the case in 2004 in particular), but the impact has been felt -- it may rise and fall, but it is unlikely to get materially worse going forward.

3. There is a Latino/Catholic factor as well -- the real growth in the church has been almost entirely due to immigration, and immigrants who are inclined to vote pro-life are more inclined to vote pro-immigrant.

4. Along with number 3, the drop out rate from the Catholic Church is sufficiently high that there are more self-defined "ex Catholics" than "currently practicing" Catholics. It is never clear to me when polls and articles talk about the number of Catholics whether they are excluding the exes -- who clearly are not likely to vote according to whatever the Bishops' priorities are, but in many cases, the extent of Catholic influence is pumped up by including them as members.

LOL -- it'd help if folks recognized what they're doing: Minion is right about the mistake Benen is making.

It is certainly true that pro-choice Catholics substantially outnumber pro-life Catholics. But those are generally clumsily phrased, shallow national polls, which aren't focused on discovering WHICH people we're talking about.

It's politics 101: if somebody is going to vote your way more or less no matter what, it doesn't particularly count how they feel about any specific issue. They're with you.

And if somebody is flat-out against you no matter what, chasing their vote is a waste of time.

It's like the old baseball analogy: the worst team wins a third of its games, the best team loses a third of its games -- what makes the difference between them is the other third.

That's where issues like the Stupak amendment have their impact. They might not get you into the World Series, but they can be the difference in enough games to keep you out of the playoffs.

Minion is right -- most pro-choice Catholics are older; younger pro-choice folks (that is, those who identify as pro-choice and vote that way) usually leave the church. The younger Catholics who are left are much more likely to be strongly pro-life -- so how they vote in the first couple elections will have a longlasting impact, since people tend to keep their early voting patterns.

The big chunk of voters we're talking about have been called by a bunch of labels -- the Silent Majority, when Nixon peeled 'em off of the old FDR coalition, Reagan Democrats, the latest term is "white ethnics". They have historically tended to be economic liberals, favoring higher taxes for rich people and spending programs to create jobs, and social conservatives: Nixon appealed to them with "law and order". (I know, it's snicker-ful, but it worked.)

The reason the Hyde Amendment was enacted and remained the law for so long is because it was more or less the sweet spot for where the country was (and probably still is) on abortion: it's Constitutionally-protected, but the taxpayer won't pay for it.

The analogy is often guns: you have a Constitutional right to own one, so long as you're not crazy or a criminal -- but nobody proposes that the Federal government will buy a gun for any American who cannot afford one.

So whatever the details are in Stupak (which are being negotiated), it DOES put into play a significant chunk of the electorate in dozens of swing Congressional districts -- the national polling notwithstanding. And how they react will largely be emotional rather than rational.

If and when those folks feel disrespected by the national Democratic party (as they are here), when and if they decide they're being told Democrats have no place for them: they will act precisely the way the Silent Majority and Reagan Democrats did.

OTOH, when they feel included, as the Big Dog consciously included 'em in 1992 and 1996 (safe, legal and "RARE"), they act like "white ethnics", voting their economic interests rather than the social wedges.

LOL -- and as for the idea that economic issues are likely to help Democrats next year: Obama predicted unemployment would top out at 8% with the stimulus, and 9% without it. It's now topped 10%, and still rising -- many economists project it won't peak for a year.

So this isn't the smartest time to confuse shallow national polling with actually counting voters in places like Mishikawa County, Indiana.

P.S. -- regarding the voting power of abortion among the young, what is evident to me as I talk to my daughter and her friends, many of whom reside in religiously observant households, some Catholic, is that whatever electoral impact the issue of abortion has might get outstripped by the issue of fair treatment of gays and lesbians. It's a whole new world: young people really despise efforts to demonize or discriminate against gays.

Barbara is right -- that's true.

It's an interesting, and maybe even unprecedented dynamic: I'm not sure there's been anything like it since the the rise of the abolitionists, and I don't think it's much like that.

Most religious denominations have very little political impact -- white evangelicals are famous for it, but the largest politically significant religious organizations are probably African-American churches. African American churches were a driving force behind the Civil Rights Movement - but this is different in that for some denominations, notably but not exclusively Catholics, abortion and gay rights are a dealbreaker.

That wasn't true for pretty much any denominations (excepting African-American churches) regarding civil rights. You have to go all the way back to abolitionism to find something so fundamental to a faith (as stated by the faith itself) that is implicated in an essentially political decision. And even then you had a ferocious North-South split, with churches in slave states and those in free states breaking apart long before Sumter.

Within Protestantism (which is like saying "within Asia"), that's generally the solution: schism. For example, the Anglican Communion is fracturing right now over gay rights.

Within Catholicism, there's a different dynamic (which is where my online monicker comes from): the Vatican tried to draw the line against legalizing divorce, and lost; then it tried again against legalizing contraception, and lost. A generation or so later the Vatican generally rationalizes its political defeat into a moral victory. Abortion plays differently because it was a SCOTUS decision rather than legislation, and it's anybody's guess how gay rights (including same sex marriage) will play out, because so far the unbroken trend has been that the good guys win until they overplay their hand, as in Maine.

But it would be completely consistent with the data if young pro-life Catholics left the Church over gay rights, and still voted against abortion.

This talking point has always annoyed me.

There is no "Catholic" vote. Catholics split their votes for president along almost exactly the same numbers as the public at large did. That was true for both Kerry and Obama.

Oh, yeah -- the "how many" issue: one of the most peculiar (and telling) conversations I ever had was with Ibrahim Hooper, the spokesperson for CAIR, when I called him up to ask how many Muslims there are in the US.

He snapped that he could tell from my question that I was pushing "an Israeli agenda". WTF? So it's a touchy issue.

The US Census does not ask a religious question, so there is a welter of different methods to figure how many people of any particular faith live here, never mind how rigorous your standard is. The American Religious Identification Survey done by City College (or Trinity? I forget) is probably the best source.

I had the total # of American Catholics at 65 million; ARIS has it down to about 57 million "self-identified" Catholics, with a really sharp decline in New England, which used to be the most Catholic part of the country.

Catholics at least have a really good standard for who is, and is not, a Catholic: it's like a magazine subscription that you have to renew annually through what's called your "Easter duty". To count as a Catholic, for ARIS, you have to identify yourself as a Catholic. For the Church, you not only have to have been baptized, but you also have to make your Easter duty -- if not, you're lapsed.

But so many people throw around the terms as if they're the same, it's helpful to remember that a self-identified Catholic may simply be unchurched.

what is evident to me as I talk to my daughter and her friends, many of whom reside in religiously observant households, some Catholic, is that whatever electoral impact the issue of abortion has might get outstripped by the issue of fair treatment of gays and lesbians.

Which is why Catholic Charities is going to get limited backing among Catholics for its DC ultimatum. That won't change Catholic Charities' mind, of course -- they're a hierarchy, not a democracy -- but it will further hurt the church's image and perceived moral standing among its flock, which has already suffered mightily over the last few years.

To John R: I absolutely, 100 percent, opposed and protested the Iraq war. I stand with the Catholic church, including 2 popes, who said this war was gravely unjust.

Here's the problem: the Catholic right in America, the people who ignore Catholic teaching on the economy (very suspicious of free market) and war have too much influence - because those on the other side display an irrational hostility to organized religion. It's too easy for them. You guys need to look in the mirror.

It's odd to even have to say it, but that's obviously not how the heirarchy sees it.

Just as they did over divorce and contraception (abortion is different), they regard same sex marriage as something beyond negotiation. How they will react to losing on it (and how the Catholic public will react) is an open question.

The Anglican Communion is having a kind of slow motion schism over it -- the African bishops simply refuse, which puts the Americans (and the Archbishop of Canterbury) in a bind, because the Americans and the British want the Anglican Communion to evolve and agree to disagree, but the African bishops are flat-out winning.

To the extent the Catholic heirarchy has a discernable strategy on the subject, Benedict is willing to accept a smaller but more uniformly orthodox Church -- and, like the African Anglican bishops, he sees the Roman Catholic future in Central and South America, as well as Africa. None of 'em see the kind of diversity and heterodoxy that we take for granted as a strength.

And remember, particularly in Nigeria, the Anglicans are directly competing with Islam. So it's not exactly incomprehensible that they might object to being tagged as weak on gays.

But what might be characterized as a defensive strength in Nigeria is a liability in the US -- yet only to a point.

That's why it's important to bear in mind that gay rights and abortion are DIFFERENT, particularly for younger Americans, especially Catholics.

Older Americans tend to think of the right to abortion as growing out of the civil rights movement and women's liberation. Those battles were long won by the time younger Americans, particularly those educated in Catholic schools, ever heard of abortion -- and for them, at least those who stay Catholic, it is a simple question of life and death, of protecting the weak: of responsiblity for your actions.

It is NOT true of younger Catholics, although arguably it was of an older generation, that responsibility means an anti-erotic position. The Catholic view on sexuality is monolithic (anti-bricolage!), but younger Catholics couldn't imagine a world where contraceptives are illegal, and the Church's ban on it is genuinely marginalized, replaced by an affirmative set of values which extend into marriage.

The important thing is simply respect: the intimate practices of Catholics, including Catholic couples, now embrace a level of privacy in doctrine which was obviously precluded when the Church was trying to keep divorce illegal in Italy and condoms outlawed in New Haven.

There is a resonance there, with young Catholics who are happy to remain Catholic (including their personal lives), and who might or might not vote pro-life -- but who are likely to reject the Church's conscious decision to draw a line in the sand against gay marriage.

Abortion and same sex marriage are not the same issue, and they're not even of the same KIND -- not for American Catholics, especially young ones, even though the Church wants it to be so.

And the point, Americanist, is that if forced to vote pro-choice but pro-gay equality, or anti-choice and anti-gay equality, I think you will find many younger voters opting for the former, because, even if they would tolerate greater restrictions on abortion, they are not insistent on the matter, and they are utterly turned off by the demonization by their fellow human beings, who are often among their friends. So long as the parties cleave in this manner, abortion will be somewhat diluted as a political issue.

the Catholic right in America, the people who ignore Catholic teaching on the economy (very suspicious of free market) and war have too much influence - because those on the other side display an irrational hostility to organized religion.

As opposed to joining the fight from within the church? I dearly hope that's what you mean, because the only other way to read that sentence is that you think it's liberal hostility that's causing the American Catholic right to dig its heels in on war, the economy and the death penalty (etc.).

And that particular answer to the chicken-and-egg dilemma is contradicted, of course, by the fact that the Catholic right has even greater influence in areas of the world in which hostility to organized religion, or more precisely, vocal opposition to Catholic policy and political action, is much less prevalent than here and now.

I am so sick of the Roman Catholic hierarchy trying to shove their Roman Catholic doctrine down my throat. They are religious terrorists.

Those battles were long won by the time younger Americans, particularly those educated in Catholic schools, ever heard of abortion -- and for them, at least those who stay Catholic, it is a simple question of life and death, of protecting the weak: of responsiblity for your actions.

You're pulling this out of your bottom based on an assumption that younger Catholics who don't flat-out leave the church are overwhelmingly anti-abortion rights. What data can you produce to support this assumption?

Make hypocrisy a sin! Make hypocrites feel guilty for their sin. Use their guilt to change their behavior.

Maybe hypocrisy is already a sin. Ought to be.

"You know, Steve, the bubble you inhabit on this issue reminds me of the Bush administration. Can you really be so blind? Blue-collar Catholic voters were once the bedrock of the Democratic coalition. They tend to be econically progressive and socially more conservative - like the Catholic Church itself. When you look at national polls on the abortion issue, you are missing the trends in key swing states. It is my firm belief that Kerry's position on abortion, more than anything else, lost him Ohio. "

Did you think that the Terri Schivo debacle was going to be good for Republicans too?

This is merely anecdotal--but for what it is worth, I was raised in a large (8 children) Catholic family, and although I am beyond lapsed, most of my family still identify as Catholic, attend mass, send their children to Catholic schools, etc. Most of my family are personally pro-life (in that they do not see abortion as a choice they could make) but vote for Democrats--including, of course, pro-choice Democrats. That includes my parents--who are anti-abortion. the other social justice issues that are part of why my family members are Catholic are equally or more important to them than the abortion issue and until Republicans change their positions on war, health care, civil rights, social programs which assist the poor and otherwise needy, etc., they will continue to vote for Democrats. That is true of many of the Catholics I know. On a semi-related note, my 72 year old dad was just telling me how happy he was that Initiative 71, which secured domestic partnership rights for gay couples, passed in Washington State.

(Of course, my Catholic education came largely at the hands of Jesuits, so my experience is not a universal Catholic experience. Not that anyone's is.)

I certainly didn't -- I realize that wasn't directed at me, since it's not my quote, but y'all really gotta understand that you can't make sense if you won't make distinctions.

The Schiavo incident was a truly bizarre, extremely public calling out of folks who wanted to inject themselves into a very private, intensely painful family squabble: the husband had the legal right, and the father didn't. It was that simple -- and, as it happened, the husband's decision was medically, as well as legally correct. All of that framed the morality of the decision -- it was just nuts that the likes of Senator Frist, MD, got involved.

Ex-seminarian: I don't think you read what I wrote as closely as, well, folks should read EVERYTHING I write -- I wrote: "for them, at least those who stay Catholic, it is a simple question of life and death, of protecting the weak: of responsiblity for your actions."

That's not the same as your characterization: "younger Catholics who don't flat-out leave the church are overwhelmingly anti-abortion rights..."

Abortion RIGHTS are essentially a political issue -- the SCOTUS has made it a Constitutional matter. I pointed out that "young Catholics who are happy to remain Catholic... might or might not vote pro-life..."

To a considerable degree, we're not talking about the same people. When I had said earlier "it would be completely consistent with the data if young pro-life Catholics left the Church over gay rights, and still voted against abortion..." I was thinking about what you surely learned are considered kids with properly formed Catholic consciences, who believe (as the Church requires) that abortion kills babies, and is thus always a grave evil.

If you're arguing that those folks don't see abortion as a matter of life and death, don't think of unborn babies as the weak who need protection, and don't think of the sex to babies dynamic as Responsibility 101, well: that probably suggests academic reasons for your ex-seminarian status.

But I think we're probably just talking about different folks -- according to the Faith in Public Life survey before the '08 election, about 30% of young Catholics go to Church once a week, which means 70% don't.

They had about 61% of young Catholics thinking abortion isn't very important voting issue -- which is odd, because overall, about 44% of Catholics think abortion should be illegal (and 56% that it shouldn't). It seems odd to have so many people thinking something should be illegal, while even more think it's unimportant -- says something about the polling method.

I don't recall seeing it broken down into crosstabs, either, which is where those percentages might have MEANT something. That is, if the 30% of young Catholics who go to church every week were markedly more pro-life than those half or more who go rarely (as I suspect), that would have told us something, but they didn't go that far.

Now -- since you were in seminary, you know that the Church is quite serious about a bunch of things, and they include abortion and same sex marriage. This Pope has said just about as clearly as he can, that it is not possible for a good Catholic to vote in good conscience for anyone who would legalize same sex marriage, and of course there remains a lively, if bizarre, debate about pro-choice Catholics in American elected office (like the Vice President and Speaker of the House).

Yet the Church's teachings on abortion are far better known, and more commonly expressed, they have much deeper roots in modern Catholic culture, than opposition to same sex marriage: the same survey had something like 80% of Catholics hearing the pro-life message in church, with only like a third hearing about same sex marriage from the pulpit.

The truth is, abortion is not like these other issues: gay rights, much less divorce or contraception. A kid who was raised to believe the not-entirely religious idea that just as an acorn is an oak (because it isn't a pinenut, nor a paper cup), so too a fertilized human egg attached to a uterus wall is a baby, and that killing a baby is wrong, isn't likely to change that moral clarity when they realize the Roman Catholic church is full of it.

When kids like that realize that the church wants them to, as Barbara put it "to vote pro-choice but pro-gay equality, or anti-choice and anti-gay equality", my reading of the data is that they will be more likely to leave the church than to become pro-choice. In other words, they're likely to demand the opportunity to vote that fits what they want more closely.

The pro-choice kids who remain Catholic aren't likely to have much of a problem voting for gay rights -- at least, not because of the Church.

So if we ARE talking about the same people -- well, I stand by my characterization of the data: those folks are quite likely to leave the Church as they are confronted more with the Church's opposition to same sex marriage, and STILL vote pro-life.

John R hit it out of the park early in the game - it's yet another example of an invented situation whereby Democrats are about to step on their dicks, which is of a necessity good news for Republicans. Such slippages of reality abound in the mainstream press, where it appears Democrats couldn't be trusted to search for lettuce in a garden salad, the people are fed up with such a collection of numpties, and they will surely be punished by the voters the first moment they have a chance to vote in a Republican.

That this set of circumstances exists only in their addled dreams appears not to bother them. Good analysis, John.

I am so sick of the control that insane religious extremists have over our nation's political process, even though they are a tiny minority of the population.

If the Democrats push through an anti choice "healthcare reform" bill, I will vote party line Green in November 2010. I am so sick of militant, anti American fundamentalists abusing the political process to push through their Taliban style political agenda.

theAmericanist, Tom K has already posted the poll that blows your suppositions out of the water. You and the Minion are simply wrong and Benen is right. On your side, we have handwaving. On the other side, actual data.

If you were paying attention, you'd notice that's the same poll I pointed to -- including its flaws, both of sampling and execution.

Honest, TRY.

theAmericanist, Tom K has already posted the poll that blows your suppositions out of the water. You and the Minion are simply wrong and Benen is right. On your side, we have handwaving. On the other side, actual data.

The Americanist and the other guy whose moniker implies he thinks he's Christ (did he even understand that poem?) are right insofar that the young Catholics they describe exist and represent a movement. They're also right that one and perhaps both of the polls I cited are pretty broad based. Shrug...you go with the data you have, and tA and MM haven't any at all.

Instead, they're trying, by handwaving (as you aptly put it) and the tA standard of wild shifting of conversational goalposts when caught, to prevent you from noticing that they have nothing, not even flawed data, backing up their cozy warm feelings/projected wishes that the people they're describing are a majority of young Catholics. Thanks for not falling for it.

Honest, TRY

ROFL... I do, which is why I know what you're spouting is nonsense, wholly unsupported by anything resembling real data. You're bloviating, and pretending that personal opinion somehow can become fact if it's surrounded by enough gibberish. Come back when you've got some real data. Until then, don't bother.