Pollster Gives Catholic Snapshot

Here is the excerpt:

Pollster John Zogby: "Clearly, Palin is helping the McCain ticket. She has high favorability numbers, and has unified the Republican Party. The striking thing here in this poll is that McCain has pulled ahead among Catholics by double-digits. On the other hand, Palin is not helping with likely voting women who are not aligned with either political party. The undecided independent women voters decreased this week from 15% to 7%, but those women went to Obama. Palin is also helping among men, conservatives, notably with suburban and rural voters, and with frequent Wal-Mart shoppers, who tend to be "values" voters who like a good value for their money."

Source link (emphasis added).

If this striking popularity among Catholics continues (and I for one think that it will, although maybe not with the same margin estimated by this particular pollster), then McCain has taken a significant step to victory on Nov. 4th. This rising popularity among Catholics further confirms my impression of Palin as a "female Reagan" with her strong personal presence and blunt, conviction-driven rhetoric. It's also interesting in terms of biography in that both Palin and Reagan were raised as evangelical Protestants (with Palin spicing it up with an interesting Pentecostal background), although there was a somewhat distant Catholic family background of sorts for both leaders. Reagan and Palin "feel Catholic" even if they are not Catholic. My guess is that there is a social class dimension here: both candidates appeal to those with blue collar small town or suburban backgrounds, a demographic that includes a lot of Catholics or at least the parents of a lot of Catholics.