Ed Kilgore of the Washington Monthly’s “Political Animal” blog has been all over this for weeks, but it’s finally trickling out to the traditional political media: Catholics aren’t voting for Rick Santorum. Protestant evangelicals are:
Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum is a proud traditional Catholic. But so far that is not helping him with Catholic voters.
Santorum has not had a significant victory among Catholic voters in any of the 10 states in which exit polls have been taken, nor has Newt Gingrich, who is also Catholic. While Santorum outpolled Mitt Romney among born-again or evangelical voters, Romney does better among Catholics, evidence that Catholics are not rallying around Santorum’s faith-based opposition to abortion and birth control.
To carry this point a bit further than a reporter for a daily newspaper can or should: Rick Santorum is the kind of “traditional Catholic” that lots of other American Catholics don’t particularly trust or like—especially in the public arena.
Edit: This isn’t a liberal-conservative issue. Catholics voting in this year’s Republican primaries aren’t liberals. These are conservative Catholics who aren’t voting for Santorum.