With all of the ridiculous controversy surrounding the Roman Catholic Church wanting to deny John Kerry communion, many have overlooked a distinct possibility: an all-Catholic Dem ticket this year.
As nearly everyone knows, having a Catholic nominee is unusual from a historical perspective. Kerry is only the third Catholic to secure a major party nomination — following JFK on the Dem ticket in 1960 and Al Smith as the Dem nominee in 1928 — and there’s never been a Catholic running mate on major party ticket.
Eric Alterman noted yesterday that this may be about to change.
A complication that is difficult to discuss in the mainstream media is that both Bill Richardson and Tom Vilsack are, like Kerry, Catholics. Now this could help and it could hurt. It hurts because it “lacks balance” and a lot of people, particularly in the South, will not vote for a Catholic. They may think they would, but once the folks who ran Bush’s campaign in South Carolina last time around get ahold of this issue, they won’t. When it comes to the politics of religious prejudice, you can certainly fool some of the people all of the time.
Before I get into why I think Alterman may be slightly wrong about anti-Catholicism in the South, I wanted to note that Richardson and Vilsack aren’t the only possibilities for an all-Catholic Dem ticket.
While it’s nearly impossible to know for sure who’s being considered, I can think of at least seven names that have been bandied about as serious VP possibilities, all of whom are Catholic: New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, Iowa Gov. Tom Vilsack, Illinois Sen. Dick Durbin, Louisiana Sen. Mary Landrieu, Delaware Sen. Joseph Biden, North Carolina Gov. Michael Easley, and, of course, former NATO Supreme Allied Commander Wesley Clark (who converted to Catholicism).
This would make for a very interesting campaign dynamic. Gore narrowly won the “Catholic vote” in 2000, but Bush won among Catholics who said they attend mass regularly. Would two Catholic candidates on the ticket tip the scales further in Dems’ favor? Perhaps.
Alterman raised two points to argue that an all-Catholic ticket would hurt the Dems national chances. The arguments have merit, but I’m unconvinced.
First, he said the ticket would “lack balance.” I don’t believe this at all. Every Republican ticket since…well, since the creation of the Republican Party has featured two white, wealthy, Protestant male candidates. No one’s ever said a word about “balance.”
Second, Alterman said anti-Catholic prejudice, particularly in the South, would be damaging. I think there’s something to this argument, but not enough for Kerry to consider it as a disqualifying factor.
Considering political and ideological changes that occurred in the 20th century, historical analogies are difficult. That said, it’s worth pointing out that Kennedy’s Catholicism didn’t stop him from winning several Southern states, including Georgia, North Carolina, and South Carolina. Even Al Smith, who lost in a landslide to Herbert Hoover, did well in the Deep South.
I realize that, at the time, the South was still a Dem stronghold, which obviously isn’t the case anymore. But the point is, anti-Catholic animus was, if anything, more common and profound in previous generations. It didn’t hurt Kennedy and Smith.
But forget history. Ultimately, if a Southern voter is prepared to vote GOP because the Dems have two Catholics on the ticket, Kerry isn’t going to get that vote anyway. If someone won’t back a Catholic ticket, he or she won’t back a Catholic candidate.
I don’t know if Kerry will want to pick a fellow-Catholic as a running mate or not, but I can’t think of any reasons to automatically exclude the possibility.