The Democratic Party shows no sign of letting up in its campaign to shame John McCain for accepting the endorsement of John Hagee, the Texas evangelist who’s had some very unkind words for Catholics. God-o-Meter wonders whether, in continuing to bash Hagee, Democrats risk losing more evangelical voters than the number of Catholics they stand to gain. Then again, despite the DNC’s stepped-up evangelical outreach effort, evangelicals are the bedrock GOP constituency. Catholics, by contrast, are the quintessential swing voters. So it’s probably a safe gamble on the Democrats’ part. Here’s Democratic National Committee chairman Howard Dean today on CNN’s Late Edition:

“And just this week he refused to denounce and reject John Hagee, a militant anti-catholic, right-wing pastor. John McCain has a history of doing what it takes regardless of what the ethics of this are. I think he’s going to be a flawed candidate. I don’t think people want four more years of what is essentially George Bush.”
“John McCain has a problem with personal integrity. He has a problem of saying one thing and doing another. What about John Hagee? What about a guy who is a vicious anti-Catholic, who is supporting John McCain and John McCain does not denounce or reject him, as Barack Obama did to Louis Farrakhan. That is the kind of stuff that really bothers Americans. People arguing over philosophy is not a problem. We can have our disagreements with John McCain. Maybe people want to stay in Iraq for 100 years. That’s fair game. But people will not elect somebody who they don’t think is honest and I don’t think John McCain has made a case for his honesty.”

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