LOOKING heavenward from the floor of Philadelphia’s First Union Center, delegates spotted a large white banner that appeared on the last evening of the convention. Bright red letters declared “Catholics & Bush” on the unauthorized, hand-painted sheet, hanging from a plush skybox the GOP provided for its Catholic Task Force. As Christians, Catholics are obliged to love Al Gore too, but this newly formed task force at the RNC hopes to convince them not to vote for him in November.
Party strategists believe that Catholic swing voters will provide Bush with his margin of victory. According to Steven Wagner, the task force’s executive director, George W. Bush has strengthened his appeal to Catholic voters in the last few weeks, even though he didn’t pick a Catholic as his running mate. “With the selection of Dick Cheney, the ticket has responded to the call of the bishops to stand unambiguously for the life of the unborn,” Wagner explains. Deal Hudson, editor of Crisis magazine and an informal adviser to the Bush campaign, agrees that any doubts about Bush’s commitment to the pro-life cause should be eliminated with his selection of a pro-life running mate, and his acceptance speech pledge to sign a ban on partial-birth abortion.
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