Liberal FOX contributor Juan Williams said on a FOX News Sunday panel that because white Catholics are against President Obama in the polls anyway, Obamacare’s birth control mandate is not going to have an effect on the 2012 elections.
Williams is making two assumptions that are probably bad: First, that white Catholics are a lost cause for Obama, and second that this policy only affects white Catholics.
In 2008, 47 percent of white Catholics voted for Obama. He certainly could do worse than that, and many losing Democratic candidates for president have done worse. The 2012 election outcome in several key states — including Pennsylvania, Florida, Ohio, and Michigan — could hinge on the difference between a 47 percent performance among white Catholic voters and a 40 percent performance.
Then there are non-white Catholics, most of whom are Hispanic. In all other contexts, they are treated as an important bloc.They voted heavily for Obama in 2008 — he won 67 percent of the Latino vote — but his numbers among Hispanics have fallen significantly in subsequent surveys. Again, past Democratic candidates have done far worse here than Obama did in 2008, and they could always revert.
With minority Catholic voters included, Catholics (27 percent of the electorate) voted 54 percent for Obama in 2008. With over 70 percent of Catholic pastors reading statements at Mass, decrying the mandate as an infringement on religious freedom, the White House is right to take this political threat seriously.
The Health and Human Services mandate would require all Catholic universities, hospitals, and other services that serve or employ non-Catholics to include full coverage of contraception and sterilization procedures in their insurance plans for employees. Catholic leaders have been rallying the faithful to oppose the Obama administration on this point.
