Washington D.C., Mar 27, 2008 / 02:33 am
Supporters of all major party candidates for the United States presidency are angling to discover how to best appeal to Catholic voters, who could be a key swing vote in the November presidential election. According to Robert Reilly, a successful McCain campaign must win over Catholics to win the White House.
Robert R. Reilly, who was President Ronald Reagan’s liaison to Catholics between 1983 and 1985, told CNA on Wednesday that Senator John McCain could not win the presidential election without the Catholic vote, which makes up about 25 percent of the electorate. “The worst thing he could assume is that [the Catholic vote] is going to fall into his lap because Catholics will have nowhere else to go,” he said.
Reilly argued that McCain could emulate Ronald Reagan’s successful appeal to the Catholic vote during his 1984 presidential campaign. Reagan’s campaign ran advertisements in Catholic newspapers featuring a photo of Reagan and Pope John Paul II smiling together. The photo, Reilly claimed, was effective because Reagan shared positions “completely congruent with those of the Catholic Church” on issues like the family, the sanctity of human life, pornography, and school prayer.
Senator McCain, Reilly said, “cannot simply claim that point of view; he needs to promote it.” Reilly noted that Reagan held a White House screening of Bernard Nathanson’s film of an abortion, titled “The Silent Scream.” Reagan also published a noteworthy essay, “Abortion and the Conscience of the Nation,” in the Human Life Review. The essay helped convince Catholic pro-lifers of Reagan’s sincerity, Reilly said.