LAST SEPTEMBER, 23 Catholics trekked to Austin, Texas, for two hours of conversation with Gov. George W. Bush. The group included Bill Donohue of the Catholic League, Father Robert A. Sirico of the Acton Institute, and Deal Hudson, editor of Crisis, the conservative Catholic magazine. Few were committed Bush supporters, and some of the questioning was rough. But when Hudson read a list of things they’d like Bush to do if elected president — sign a ban on partial-birth abortion, seek to outlaw third trimester abortions, stop any federal money for abortions — Bush said these were “no-brainers.” And he went further, promising to appoint a pro-life ambassador to the United Nations to fight against abortion as a population control measure. The group left delighted with Bush.
This may have been the high point of Bush’s wooing of conservative Catholics. After the meeting, “the word went out that Bush was solidly pro-life,” says Hudson, who coordinates Bush’s informal Catholic advisory group. “He understood his policy of compassionate conservatism and his emphasis on faith-based institutions was fundamentally in line with Catholic social teaching. He understood subsidiarity.” For those who aren’t familiar with that last concept, it holds, in the words of Pope John Paul, that social needs “are best understood and satisfied by people who are closest to them.”
From the embryonic days of the Bush presidential campaign, conservative Catholic voters have been a major target, viewed by Bush strategist Karl Rove as a key to winning the White House in 2000. Neither Bush nor Rove has talked publicly about a Catholic strategy. But they have one, and it’s being pursued more eagerly than ever now in the wake of Bush’s visit to Bob Jones University and John McCain’s effort to link Bush to the school’s anti-Catholicism. “Bush is on notice he must not take Catholics for granted,” says pollster Steve Wagner, an expert on Catholic voting patterns.
The Rove strategy was designed to reverse the slow drift of Catholics away from the Republican party. In 1984, Ronald Reagan won a majority of Catholics, the first GOP presidential candidate to achieve this. But since then, Republicans have lost Catholic voters in two steps. First, George Bush, father of George W., “took a big hit among active Catholics in 1988,” says Wagner. He won the presidency anyway. But he lost a huge bloc of inactive Catholics — that is, occasional Mass attenders — in 1992 to Ross Perot, and thus was not reelected.
Bob Dole regained some Catholic votes in 1996, but not as a result of anything he did. At one point in the campaign, Dole was urged to meet with Cardinal O’Connor of New York City. He declined. “By and large, Republicans have not recovered the numbers [among Catholics] that Reagan had,” says Wagner. This also applies to congressional races. Republicans captured 53 percent of Catholic voters in 1994, but they haven’t done as well since. In 1998, Democratic candidates won 53 percent of Catholics in House races.
To attract Catholics, George W. Bush recognized he would have to ease their historic suspicion of Republicans, particularly on economic issues. According to Wagner, many Catholics regard Republicans as too materialistic and insufficiently concerned about losers in the market-place and the poor. And even conservative Catholics tend to be far less anti-government than most Republicans. Bush’s response to their leeriness? Compassionate conservatism and government’s use of religious organizations to aid the needy. Says Wagner: “Compassionate conservatism is perfectly designed to appeal to Catholics.”
Maybe so, but Bush began to deemphasize it when pressed by McCain in the GOP primaries. In Iowa, New Hampshire, and South Carolina, he talked up his tax cut plan and his more conventional conservative positions. Then came the Bob Jones fiasco. When Bush spoke at the school on February 2, the day after losing the New Hampshire primary, he had no idea his visit would become a drag on his candidacy and a threat to his Catholic strategy. As he noted in a nationally televised debate on March 2, Bob Jones had become a regular stopping place for Republicans, including Reagan and his father. None of their visits became controversial, despite the well-known hostility to Catholicism by officials of the school.
Once McCain began attacking him for failing to chastise Bob Jones for its view of Catholics, however, Bush had a problem. To make matters worse, the McCain campaign started what it dubbed a “Catholic voter alert.” In targeted phone messages, Catholics were told of Bob Jones’s history of anti-Catholicism and of Bush’s appearance. At the least, the phone calls suggested Bush is soft on sworn enemies of the Catholic church. Bush was indignant about McCain’s criticism, but slow to answer. By February 20, the day after the South Carolina primary, Bush’s Catholic advisers — who had proved unable to stop the growing sense of grievance among the bishops and Catholic voters — were urging Bush to respond. But it took nearly a week for Bush to dispatch a letter to Cardinal O’Connor expressing regret over not upbraiding Bob Jones for anti-Catholic bias. A missed opportunity, he called it.
The question now is whether Bush still has a chance to gain new support among Catholics. In other words, is his original Catholic strategy realistic, post-Bob Jones? Bush advisers think so. Others aren’t so sure. Vin Weber, who’s advising McCain, says Bush has “a Catholic problem” that’s worse than he realizes. Weber, a Catholic, says Bush has “the basis” for appealing to Catholics on issues, but lacks an understanding of “what Catholicism is all about.” In the end, Bush may need to pick a Catholic running mate, Weber says. That goes beyond the Bush strategy, but it might work. Too bad John McCain isn’t Catholic.
CORRECTION-DATE: March 20, 2000
CORRECTION:
Fred Barnes reported last week that Bob Dole had declined to meet with Cardinal O’Connor of New York during the 1996 presidential campaign (“George W. Bush’s Catholic Problem”). Mr. Dole informs us that he did in fact meet with O’Connor.
Fred Barnes is executive editor of THE WEEKLY STANDARD.
