While the CNS (Cardinal Newman Society, not Catholic News Service) starts a petition against Obama delivering the commencement address at Notre Dame in May, and while commenters at this blog and elsewhere vent that this is the end of support for ND, not to mention the church in America, it’s worth noting that Notre Dame students themselves appear somewhat more pro-Obama than even the country at large.

In a mock election before last year’s real election, the Democratic ticket won 52.6 percent of the vote followed by the Republican ticket of Sen. John McCain and Gov. Sarah Palin, which won 41.1 percent of the vote. A total of 2,692 undergraduates and graduate students voted.

And according to the write-up, abortion as a standalone category didn’t figure high the students’ priorities–just as it did not for the electorate and Catholic voters at large:

The most important issue for those who voted was the economy, with 41.5 percent of the votes, followed by foreign policy at 17.7 percent. Of the remaining issues, 9.8 percent chose energy and the environment as the most important issue in the election, 9.5 percent chose other, 7.7 percent chose abortion, 6.2 percent chose the Iraq War, 3.3 percent chose education, 3.2 percent chose civil liberties and one percent chose immigration.

[Hat tip to Notre Dame’s own Cathleen Kaveny.]