The next Catholic president?

The prognostication begins, over at PolitickerNJ: 

New Jersey in November 2013 is inundated by images of one past president, and perhaps a future one.

With the 50th anniversary of the death of President John F. Kennedy, JFK’s face and voice are everywhere – television, radio, print and online. America can watch, frame by frame, his life play out until the moment of his death, a horrific instant that ended, among other things, the sole American Catholic presidency.

While Kennedy’s face graces the window of Mendham Books, in Gov. Chris Christie’s hometown, Christie’s name, in the wake of his landslide reelection victory, appears prominently in any discussion of 2016 presidential contenders. According to a priest shaking hands after Sunday Mass in St. Joseph’s Church, Mendham, the parish has seen the governor’s face in the pews before. There is no question that Christie, of half-Irish, half-Sicilian descent, is Catholic. The question is, can Christie be the next Catholic president?

Catholics, the largest single religious denomination in the U.S., comprise about 25 percent of both the national population and the electorate. In the past six presidential races, the candidates who received the most Catholic votes won five of them — the lone exception, ironically, being Democrat U.S. Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts, a Catholic, in 2004.

In the past three presidential elections, the Catholic vote has nearly mirrored the national vote. In 2012, President Obama won 50 percent to 48 percent among Catholics, while winning 51 percent to 47 percent nationally. In 2008, he carried the Catholic vote by nine points as he defeated Republican Arizona Sen. John McCain by seven points nationally. The 2004 battle between George W. Bush and Kerry saw the Democrat go down to Bush by five points among his coreligionists, three points nationally. ..

…Larry J. Sabato, director of the University of Virginia’s Center for Politics and author of “The Kennedy Half-Century: The Presidency, Assassination, and Lasting Legacy of John F. Kennedy,” spoke of another Catholic dividing line.

“Those who are devout Catholics who attend Mass regularly, they vote substantially Republican. The Catholics who are, shall we say, Christmas and Easter Catholics who rarely attend Mass, are substantially Democratic,” Sabato told PolitickerNJ.com. “Remember, JFK got 80 percent of the Catholic vote [in 1960]. Democrats did very well for a while because of the memory of Kennedy, but that has all faded. But I don’t know that Christie can expect to get a percent or two higher than any other Republican candidate would among Catholics.”

The ascension of Pope Francis to the papal throne earlier this year adds a new dynamic for any candidate trying to capture the Catholic vote.

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