THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, October 5, 1996 TAG: 9610050001
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A15 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Opinion
SOURCE: Kerry Dougherty
LENGTH: 83 lines
Ah, to be a swing voter.
What an exciting notion: You swagger to the voting place confident that your vote counts more than the next guy's. You're a swing voter, after all.
Whomever you vote for will surely win - because that's what being a swing voter is all about.
Lately I and about 60 million other Catholics have learned something fascinating about ourselves: We've been anointed ``swing voters'' by every navel-gazing political pundit who's run out of important things to say about the presidential election.
``Catholics will provide the pivotal swing vote in the 1996 presidential election,'' declared New York Times Syndicate writer Mike McManus last week.
And to think, I used to regard myself as a mere mackeral-snapping Mick.
True, we Catholics represent about 23 percent of the population. If we all vote the same way on Election Day, we will decide who will be moving his Barcolounger into the White House in January, and who will be loading up the station wagon for that long drive back to Kansas or Arkansas.
It's happened before. Look at 1960, when 82 percent of Catholic voters cast ballots for John F. Kennedy. Just think, if it hadn't been for Catholics, we could have enjoyed the spectacle of Watergate during the 1960s instead of waiting until the '70s.
But things are different now. Catholics are not a monolithic voting bloc. When I go to Mass on Sunday I see parishioners who mourn the day Latin was banished kneeling next to devotees of the leftist Liberation Theology.
It's hard to put a label on Catholics these days.
And the Church isn't making it any easier. Its leadership has provided a complicated framework of teachings that makes loyalty to either major political party problematical.
Before each of the last five presidential elections the Catholic Bishops' Administrative Board issued a ``Statement on Political Responsiblity.'' This provocative document is aimed at prodding Catholics to vote - after educating themselves on important moral issues.
I suspect that devout Catholics who are card-carrying Republicans or card-carrying Democrats find the bishops' current statement vexing because of its emphasis on what is known in Catholic parlance as ``the consistent ethic of life,'' which straddles the platforms of both major parties.
``We stand with the unborn and the undocumented when many politicians seem to be abandoning them,'' the bishops write. ``We defend children in the womb and on welfare. We oppose the violence of abortion and the vengeance of capital punishment. We oppose assault weapons on our streets and condoms in our schools.''
Whoa! Hold on a minute. The general public is aware that the Catholic Church condemns abortion. But how many know that the church is equally opposed to capital punishment?
And what to make of a group that condemns euthanasia and endorses judicious use of affirmative action? The church supports workers' rights to form labor unions and collectively bargain, while also supporting school choice and tuition vouchers for parents.
If you're looking at each candidate's stands and jotting down checkmarks on how they square with Catholic philosophy, you'll find them pretty evenly distributed.
By holding fast to its consistent philosophy, the church has been able to maintain a sort of moral authority that organizations such as the Christian Coalition have forfeited because of its close ties to the Republican party. For instance, the Christian Coalition's strong backing of the Contract with America left the Coalition mute when states passed welfare-reform regulations with ``family caps.'' Those are regulations that refuse to boost welfare payments for families who have additional children while on welfare.
The Coalition is made up of smart people who understand what family cap provisions really mean: Poor pregnant women will be pushed toward abortion, which the Coalition opposes.
The Catholic Church, on the other hand, has been outspoken in denouncing this particular welfare ``reform.''
For those who worry - or hope - that the Catholic vote will somehow swing the election, it won't happen. The U.S. Bishops know that.
``The challenge for our Church is to be principled without being ideological, to be political without being partisan . . . our moral framework does not easily fit the categories of right or left, Republican or Democrat. We are called to measure every party and movement by how its agenda touches human life and human dignity. ''
Remember, both Pat Buchanan and Mario Cuomo were shaped in large part by the teachings of the Catholic Church. MEMO: Ms. Dougherty is an editorial writer for The Virginian-Pilot. by CNB