HOW CATHOLICS VOTED

...NBC said it appeared, for example, that Italians in New York gave Ford a majority...

...There is good reason to believe that Italian-Americans, influenced partly by the role played by Peter Rodino and John Sirica in bringing down Nixon, were the least forgiving Americans as far as Watergate is concerned...

...Catholic Problem...

...If we are to believe the polls, Jimmy Carter left the Democratic convention last July with 67 percent of the Catholic vote, steadily lost a third of that support until he trailed President Ford among Catholics 46-45 percent the weekend before the election and then won back half of his loss in two days, finishing the election with a 56-41 lead according to NBC and a 55-45 lead according to CBS...

...It would be wrong to suggest that Carter did not have some difficulties with Catholics...

...This is particularly true in an election like this one, with the economy a major issue...

...The simple fact is that Ford and Carter made inroads into each other's constituency and Carter did a better job...

...I, for one, believe that the polls may very well be right and that this kind of double shift did in fact occur within the Catholic community...

...The vice-presidential debate, which featured Bob Dole at his most Nixonian, helped Mondale become the traditional Democratic hero that traditional Democrats could identify with...

...Catholic columnists like Jimmy Breslin, Andrew Greeley and Michael Novak were especially harsh toward Carter...

...when it became clear to many Catholics that they did face a clear choice between a classic Roosevelt Democrat and a classic laissez-faire Republican, the choice became easier to make...

...Then, subtract two percent for those who voted for Eugene McCarthy and maybe another one percent for Catholic liberals who rationalized a vote for Ford...

...All things considered, Carter did extremely well among Catholics, getting about 85 percent of the 67 percent he might expect under the best of conditions...

...Carter, with surprising strength in generally Republican southern Ohio, pulled out a slim victory in a major state that has traditionally eluded the Democrats' grasp...

...In fact, Watergate may well be responsible for one of Carter's most impressive feats-the total turn-around of the Italian-American vote...

...Statistics, though, are still somewhat deceptive...

...There are a number of Catholic liberals who might fit this description...

...Senator Mondale maintained all along that Carter did not have a Catholic problem...

...The bishops did not hurt Carter directly on the abortion issue, but they hurt him in two more subtle ways...

...It has been noted, perhaps with racist overtones, that Carter could not have been elected without the Black vote and that a majority of whites voted for Ford...

...But the Catholic Church has transmitted at least the impression that government involvement in human needs areas is respectable and good...

...To many Catholics, the voting booth is like a confessional-it is a place where they reveal their darkest secrets, such as support for an allegedly unpopular Democratic candidate...

...It may sound Agnewesque, but it is legitimate to ask whether the media's treatment of Carter's alleged Catholic problem did not help create one...

...He lost to Jackson, Udall and Jerry Brown among Catholics and Jews in late primaries...

...NBC also reported that 51 percent of Irish-Americans voted for Carter and that he received a majority among Polish- and Slavic-Americans, particularly in the Milwaukee area...

...And one final word about Catholics and Carter...

...So if it is true that Blacks elected Carter, it is also true that Jews, Catholics and Carter's fellow Baptists elected Carter...

...the media tried to make a serious issue of Carter's pronunciation of "Eye-talian" in his acceptance speech...

...An NBC survey showed that 53 percent of all undecideds who settled on a candidate early in the week before the election picked Carter...

...The media focused on the bishops' discontent with Carter's abortion position while polls showed people were not going to vote on abortion...

...But, all in all, the media coverage of the "Carter Catholic problem" was terrible...

...But Carter received 46 percent of the total Protestant vote, eight percent more than the average for Democratic candidates since 1952...

...Watergate and the Nixon pardon was also an issue with Catholics...

...The second way that the bishops hurt Carter was even more subtle...

...it took a little time for lightning to strike, but it eventually did...

...This does not mean that Catholics are constantly aware of statements by the bishops on these subjects...

...This leaves four to five percent who voted for Ford for a combination of subtle reasons, ranging from cultural discomfort to bigotry, from fear of the unknown to a feeling that it was somehow disloyal to vote against an incumbent...

...Blacks vote for Democrats, but so do white Catholics and white Jews...

...Another factor in Carter's "Catholic problem" was the strong effort mounted by Ford to be identified as the "Catholic" candidate...

...at a later meeting they said they were "encouraged" by Ford's support for a states' rights amendment...

...There also had to be a good number of turn-arounds -Catholics who may even have gone into the voting booth planning to vote for Ford but then pulled the Democratic lever instead...

...he spoke on human rights at Notre Dame and on morality in foreign policy at Boston College...

...According to NBC, they voted for Carter by a 57-43 margin...

...Harris polls showed that Mondale added at least two percent to Carter's tally, and this was certainly the case among Catholics...

...Carter, on the other hand, got one of the best receptions of his campaign at the annual meeting of the National Conference of Catholic Charities in Denver...

...Certain bishops, such as Philadelphia's Cardinal John Krol, Arlington's Bishop Thomas Welsh and Chicago's Auxiliary Bishop Alfred L. Abramowicz made comments which were interpreted as critical of Carter...

...Second, subtract one percent for those who voted against Carter because of the abortion issue...

...Ford could win Illinois, the most typical state, and still lose the country...

...The media coverage of "Carter and Catholics" was a fine example of "pack journalism"-the same story was written over and over again with no new insight or research...

...He went into ethnic neighborhoods with such style that Andrew Greeley, who began by calling Carter "dangerous" for Catholics ended by calling him "a gifted human being...

...The erosion in Carter's Catholic support was partially influenced by the outcome of the Republican convention and partially by the enormous media coverage of Carter's alleged Catholic problem...

...By focusing as much as they did on abortion, they helped Ford create the impression that things were basically otherwise all right in the country...

...white Protestants are the only group which traditionally gives Republicans majorities...

...This is just a guess, but I've seen nothing to suggest the percentage was any higher...

...The media highlighted the fact that Bernardin said the bishops were "disappointed" with Carter's unwillingness to support an abortion amendment...

...The Catholic Church teaches that the gover-ment has a strong responsibility to meet human needs in areas such as health care, jobs, education and so on...

...they are not...

...If the bishops had used their time with Ford to press the unemployment issue and help give it some more attention, for example, the tone of the campaign would have been a little different...

...Carter's Catholic support dropped sharply in the last weeks of the campaign, not as the result of anything with a particularly Catholic slant but because of the overall drop in Carter's support due to an effective campaign run by Ford to raise doubts about Carter and the fact that as the election drew near, the strength of the incumbency seemed to grow...

...How did Carter pick up 11 percent of the Catholic vote in a matter of two days...

...The early 67 percent figure represents exactly what Carter's overall 30-plus point lead in the polls at the time represented-the optimum vote for a Democratic candidate running unopposed and getting all the breaks...

...But Blacks voted heavily for McGovern, and he still lost...

...Much has been said about the fact that the Catholic vote does not exist as a bloc, and there is a great deal of truth to this...

...New York City Council president Paul O'Dwyer remarked during the Democratic convention that liberals were more prejudiced against Carter as a southerner than Catholics were prejudiced against him as a Baptist...

...Carter may have overreacted in his criticism of Ford's Eastern Europe gaffe, but that issue may well have helped him carry Wisconsin...

...JIM CASTELLI is the Capitol Hill reporter and columnist for NC News Service...

...Carter may nave lost some of his early support because he lost his "independence" and relied heavily upon the Democratic party structure and organized labor...

...The incident which contributed most to the impression of Carter's Catholic problem was his meeting with a committee of six bishops, headed by Archbishop Joseph Bernardin, president of the National Conference of Catholic Bishops...

...the media reported doubts about Carter's sensitivities to urban problems but didn't report on his staff's actions to help sharpen those sensitivities...

...Carter even read all those position papers of the bishops on issues like the economy, housing and food policy...

...But it was precisely the fact that on November 2 Catholics could relate to Carter as a traditional Democrat that won him the share of their vote he needed to send Jerry Ford back to the golf course...

...Reaction to the impression that the bishops had endorsed Ford, however, led to a clarification and an explicit rejection of "one-issue voting" on the abortion issue...

...Part of the reason is that undecided Catholics seemed to follow the national trend of turning to Carter in large numbers...

...In 1972, while other Catholic ethnics gave McGovern a slim majority, Italian-Americans voted for Nixon by a 58-42 margin...

...This now famous meeting was regarded as a setback for his campaign at the time, but it may have helped in the long run...

...It has been suggested that large numbers of Democrats who voted Republican for the first time in 1972 did so expecting to be struck by lightning...

...His efforts all involved symbols, not substance...

...These estimates are almost all subjective, but, I think, representative: First, subtract from 67 percent three percent for Catholics who have moved to the suburbs, figuratively and literally, and become more Republican in the past eight years...

...Interestingly enough, 67 percent is also the total of the 1968 vote of Hubert Humphrey (59) and George Wallace (8), a very good indication of the most a Democrat can expect from Catholics if he is not himself a Catholic being attacked for his religion (Kennedy) or a Kennedy heir running against a Republican generally perceived as an extremist (Johnson...

...This vote allowed Carter to win Wisconsin, a victory which surprised the Carter staff...

...Minnesota Senator Walter Mondale was well-known to the labor and ethnic groups which knew the least about Carter...

...But it would be inaccurate to say the Democratic party's appeal to Catholics does not have some religious overtones...

...As one priest put it, "When I went home for a visit, my mother asked, 'Why don't the bishops like Carter?' It wasn't the amendment issue, she just had the feeling they didn't like him, just like my brother in 1972 knew that George Meany didn't like McGovern...

...This year's election was certainly atypical because of Carter's solid base in the South...

...56 percent of those choosing the weekend before the election picked Carter and 63 percent of those deciding on Election Day picked Carter...

...The fact is that the fate of the cities was a major issue in this campaign, and it was an issue which brought many Catholics "home" to the Democratic party...

...He went to Catholic cathedrals and shrines and took out full-page ads in diocesan papers, but he never dealt with the substance...

...some voted for McCarthy, some for Ford...

...while everyone remembers that George McGovern was the first Democrat in decades to lose the Catholic vote (52-48), few people seem to remember that a September Harris poll in fact showed him with only 27 percent of the Catholic vote...

...The vice-presidential selection of the major candidates also probably worked to Carter's advantage...

...This kind of movement could have been predicted from 1972...

...Emphasis on the Black vote alone distorts traditional voting patterns...

...while Catholic Democrats who backed those candidates could be expected to back Carter over Ford, Carter was still a little-known quality to Catholic independents and Republicans...

...He blamed the media for using a "microscope" to find the problem, and he may be right...

...The "Catholic vote" is often coherent for cultural reasons-large numbers of Catholics share the heritage of living in northeastern urban areas...