As the Republicans leave Tampa and the Democrats prepare to gather in Charlotte, one dynamic is immediately clear in both parties: For the first time since Abraham Lincoln ran in 1860, no white Protestant will be on the ticket of either major party.<\/p>\n
Mitt Romney, the newly minted Republican nominee for the White House, is a Mormon, though he clearly does not want to talk publicly about how his faith shapes his identity and personal values. Paul Ryan, his running mate, is a Catholic, a fact Romney made sure to mention in the vice presidential rollout ceremony. Indeed, Romney\u2019s two closest rivals in the GOP presidential primaries were also Catholics: Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum.<\/p>\n
On the Democratic side, President Obama is an African-American Protestant despite the fetid conspiratorial screams that the president is a crypto-Muslim. Finally, Vice President Joe Biden, like Ryan, is an Irish-American Catholic. <\/p>\n
Gone are the bad old days of 1928 when New York Gov. Alfred E. Smith, a Catholic, faced withering religious prejudice in his unsuccessful campaign against Herbert Hoover, a Quaker. In September 1960, the first and so far only Catholic president, John F. Kennedy, described his religious beliefs in a historic speech at a Greater Houston Ministerial Association meeting:<\/p>\n