David Gibson has a fascinating post over at Progressive Revival in which he (and Mark Silk, by extension) argue that abortion shifts very few votes. They cite numerous studies, and make a persuasive case — when it comes to most Catholics.
But one of the great myths of American politics is that the abortion fracas is largely about the Catholic vote. It’s not. It’s largely about the evangelical Protestant vote. This is ironic, since it was the Catholic Church that led the pro-life movement for years, but now poll after poll shows that Catholics either don’t care much about abortion or pretty much reflect the general range of public opinion on abortion.
Evangelical Protestants, however, are far more pro-life than Catholics and seem to care more about it as an issue.
So let me be more precise about who abortion matters for: moderate evangelicals, many of whom agree with Obama on many issues but not on abortion. It seems to me about 10%-15% of evangelicals are “in play” (McCain prior to Palin was underperforming among evangelicals compared to Bush by about that much).
As for Catholics, it’s certainly not a factor for conservative Catholics who were going to vote for McCain anyway. And it’s not decisive for liberal Catholics who were going to vote Obama anyway. But the question (not answered in most of these polls) is how important is abortion for that sliver of middle-of-the-road swing Catholics. I suspect that it’s important for some of the mass-attending “convertible Catholics” (as Amy Sullivan dubbed them).
This may sound like I’m slicing the baloney pretty thin. A sliver of a sliver of evangelicals. True — except that evangelicals and Catholics each represent about a quarter of the electorate. A sliver here, a sliver there, and pretty soon you’re talking some real votes.