One of the fascinating aspects of John Kerry’s run for the presidency was how thoroughly denuded of Catholicism his image became. Maybe it was because Kerry is French-Catholic instead of Irish-Catholic. That’s probably a part of it. The fact that several Bishops attacked Kerry over his position on abortion rights certainly didn’t help. But it was clear that there was no mobilization of Catholic-pride for a candidate that would have been only the second Catholic ever to serve in the White House. And I think I know why, and I think things will be different with Joe Biden.
John Kerry’s mother was a member of the famous Forbes family and little John was educated in elite European schools. Joe Biden’s parents were poor working class folks out of Scranton, Pennsylvania and he attended a Catholic school.
John Kerry went to Yale and belonged to the elite Skull & Bones secret society. That’s a very WASPy background. Joe Biden went to the University of Delaware and the lightly regarded Syracuse Law School. There’s nothing elite about that. By the time Kerry ran for the presidency, he had married into the Heinz ketchup fortune and was the richest member of the Senate. Joe Biden married a school teacher and remains the least rich member of the Senate.
I’m not pointing this out to be critical of John Kerry or to praise Joe Biden. But for millions of American Catholics, Biden’s life story has tremendous resonance. That just simply wasn’t the case with John Kerry. Joe Biden exudes an Irish-Catholic attitude and experience. It was easy to forget that John Kerry was Catholic at all.
In a lot of ways Joe Biden should be easier for average Catholic families to relate to than John F. Kennedy was. John F. Kennedy’s father, Joseph Kennedy, served as the first chairman of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), and was appointed by FDR as ambassador to the United Kingdom. Catholics took pride in seeing one of their own reach the higher reaches of power, but the Kennedys were not exactly like the neighbors next door.
Joe Biden is exactly like the neighbor next door for countless working class Catholics in the Rust Belt of America, in urban enclaves like South Boston, Brooklyn, and South Philadelphia, and in the inner suburbs of the Mid-Atlantic and New England.
It’s hard to say that a man that has served in the Senate for thirty-five years is not a member of the elite. But as much as any man could pull off that perception, it is Joe Biden. He never settled in DC, he never enriched himself, and he never lost his combative, working-class attitude. The guy is a champion to a whole segment of the non-elite Catholic community. And that is something that could result in a kind of Catholic-pride factor in this election. Biden has a certain authenticity that allows him to fill that role. John Kerry couldn’t pull it off at all.
Yet, it remains true that the vice-presidential pick is rarely that important in how people make their decision on election day. For that reason, I don’t expect enormous movement from working class Catholics to the Obama-Biden ticket. But I expect significant movement, and it will be quite helpful.
Biden should not be shy about playing up his Catholic identity. He should go to South Bend and give a foreign policy speech to the Notre Dame community. He should have pictures distributed of him receiving the sacrament. He should campaign with Obama in the Italian Market of South Philly and go to Saint Monica church in deep South Philly.
He should do this, not as a way to pump up the importance of his piety, but to send the message that he is culturally Catholic and from working class roots. This, more than any regional strength, is where Biden’s presence on the ticket can move a significant number of voters.
