Over at the National Catholic Reporter, John Allen hits a homerun, with a trenchant and clear-headed column about politics, the election, Catholics and those among the electorate (that would include Your Humble Blogger) who feel “politically homeless.”

Take a gander:

Most analyses of the “Catholic vote” presume there are three basic camps: pro-Obama Catholics, pro-McCain Catholics, and the undecided. For purposes of electoral handicapping, that’s a natural way of slicing the pie, but it neglects another important constituency. This block has no candidate, no network of think-tanks and advocacy groups, and it only registers indirectly in the polls: Catholics alienated from both parties, who aren’t undecided but rather disenfranchised.

I was in Baltimore earlier this week for a speaking engagement, and fell into conversation with a bright young Catholic theologian who offered a terrific sound-bite for this camp: “I can’t help thinking that both parties are addicted to preemptive strikes,” he told me, “whether it’s in the womb or on the battlefield.”

John Carr, a veteran policy expert for the U.S. bishops, has said that Catholics who take the church’s social teaching seriously wind up “politically homeless” in America. Just like the real homeless out on American streets, the politically homeless are often forgotten, but that doesn’t mean they don’t exist.

If you want proof of the point, just look at the data from the Pew Forum about the preferences of religious sub-groups. The results for white Evangelicals, white mainline Protestants and black Protestants form flat lines since June; their attitudes haven’t really budged in statistically significant fashion. White non-Hispanic Catholics, on the other hand, have oscillated dramatically. In July, they were going 47-44 for Obama; in late September, it was 52-39 for McCain; and by early October, it was 54-39 for Obama. One obvious reading is that there’s a sizeable chunk of the Catholic population that simply isn’t persuaded by either guy.

Here’s a thought exercise: In the abstract, what would the political fortunes be in America of a candidate who actually embodied the full range of Catholic social concerns? What would happen if a serious candidate came along who’s pro-life, pro-family, anti-war, pro-immigrant, anti-death penalty, pro-sustainable development, and a multi-lateralist in foreign policy concerned with religious freedom and a robust role for believers in public life? My hunch is that such a candidate could be attractive to a broad cross-section of moderates and independents. The machinery of both major parties, however, appears almost designed to prevent such a person from ever being nominated.

After Nov. 4, Catholics on the winning side will start scrambling for various forms of access and patronage from the new administration, while those who backed the loser will start organizing the opposition. In other words, both the victors and the vanquished in American politics know exactly what to do once the smoke from battle clears.

For disenfranchised Catholics, the road ahead is far less clear. For what it’s worth, my own reading is that it’s no use trying an end-run around the two-party system. If a holistic Catholic sensibility is ever going to cut ice in American politics, it will have to come from one of the two parties being hijacked from within — the way Reagan moved the goalposts for the Republicans, or Clinton for the Democrats. (Or, if you prefer an overseas example, the way that Blair built “New Labour.”)

In that light, it would be an interesting experiment if a network of Catholic policy groups, activists, and intellectuals were to take shape once election season is over, devoted to laying the groundwork for influencing both parties from within.

Continue at the link for more.