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Harris and Casey Struggles With Anti-Catholic Charges in Pennsylvania Show Deeper Dem Problem 

Posted on Monday, October 28, 2024
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by Aaron Flanigan
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Just as a troubled Harris presidential campaign is struggling with a decline in poll numbers and favorability ratings, emerging reports of pessimism and infighting among aides, and a conspicuously embarrassing last-minute dispute among her supporters over basic strategies like attacking Trump and adjusting policy positions, the Democrat nominee is also having to deal in a critical swing state with the consequences of her campaign’s earlier failure to handle a Catholic voter problem identified several weeks ago in a Politico article titled “Kamala Harris’ Pennsylvania Problem.” 

Harris’s latest challenge is the release in Pennsylvania of a widely watched ad narrated by Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. and produced by CatholicVote that directly criticizes her and labels the Democrat Party as “the party of war, censorship, and corruption,” and urges Catholic voters to “love our children more than we hate each other” and to vote for Donald Trump. Simultaneously, however, Harris’s fortunes with Catholic voters are being complicated by a challenge to her down-ticket running mate, Senate Democrat Bob Casey, who himself is being confronted with attacks on the same issue. In a tight race against David McCormick, a West Point graduate and successful businessman positioning Casey as a career politician, the incumbent Democrat is being targeted by two-minute ads in both Spanish and English, broadcast on Hispanic TV morning and nightly news in Philadelphia, which criticize his own and the Democrat Party’s record of anti-Catholic bias. These ads, previously used in five Senate races and now reintroduced in Pennsylvania for the final campaign week, aim to influence Philadelphia’s 250,000 Hispanic voters—voters who could be decisive in Casey’s race against McCormick. 

Although the Kennedy and Casey ads differ in tone, they share significant themes that may have real appeal to Catholics and thus could mean trouble for both Democratic candidates. Kennedy’s ad is inspirational yet pointed; he speaks of his Catholicism as the “foundation for a lifetime of striving to perfect my personal relationship with God.” Catholics, Kennedy says, should “strive to perfect ourselves through conscious contact with our Creator, knowing that in human form, we are never going to achieve perfection.” He attributes his hope for improvement to his support for Trump: “President Trump has promised to take bold action on our economy, on the border, and on restoring children’s health,” signaling how far the Democrat Party has drifted from Catholic values. 

On the other hand, the anti-Casey ad is direct, specific, and comprises a sort of hard-hitting two-minute political indictment of the Democrat Party. Sponsored by Frontiers of Freedom Action, it highlights Democrats’ “cruel war” against the Little Sisters of the Poor and left-wing senators’ imposition of an “unconstitutional religious test” against Catholics nominated to serve on the U.S. Supreme Court and other roles within the federal judiciary. The ad goes on to catalog some of the progressive left’s most shocking acts of anti-Catholic prejudice—from their embrace of transgender ideology to their flagrant persecution of Catholics who assent to the Church’s teachings on the sanctity of life. The ad also makes note of Kamala Harris’s and Joe Biden’s celebration of the so-called “Transgender Day of Visibility” on Easter Sunday, the holiest day of the year for Christians, as well as their administration’s initial refusal to allow the Knights of Columbus to celebrate a Memorial Day Mass at Arlington National Cemetery. 

And critically important to Hispanic voters, the ads conclude with a direct appeal to Latinos and Hispanics. “Latino American families remember—Latino Americans remember—how evil governments in Mexico, Cuba, Nicaragua, and Venezuela hated the Church and Catholics, and how they persecuted priests, nuns, and laypeople,” the ad’s narrator states. “Latino Americans know from history that this must not happen here in America.” 

The problems posed for both Harris and Casey by the Kennedy and Frontiers of Freedom spots come as the key electoral demographic of Hispanic voters—many of whom are Catholic themselves (43% of Latino adults identify as Catholic)—continues to cause alarm among Democrats. A late August Reuters poll found that Hispanics prefer Trump over Harris on immigration by five points and on the economy by nine points. A recent Opiniones Latinas survey found that Trump has gained 17 points with Hispanics from 2020. And according to a recent NBC News poll, Hispanic support for Democrats “has declined to [its] lowest level in the past four presidential cycles”—a seismic warning sign to both the Harris-Walz ticket and to Democrats running in competitive Senate and House races. Republicans are also making historic gains with black voters and men, drawing fresh attention to the left’s hostility to the Catholic faith as both parties seek to curry favor from Catholic voters, a crucial electoral block. 

Harris’s and Casey’s difficulty in dealing with the media blitz has a significance, however, going beyond just the problem of unhappy Catholic voters in one state and speaks to a larger problem now a topic of discussion among political observers and commentators: a Harris candidacy and staff structure that, in never having been stress-tested by primary contests, are more than a little prone to messaging and policy turnabouts and sudden oscillations between complete paralysis and hasty overreaction. 

Because exactly this sort of inexperience is what created Harris’s current Catholic problem. It was a grave misstep by her own campaign that in September, unnecessarily moved the Catholic issue for Democrats from highly dormant to one boiling now on one of the 2024 election’s front burners. The campaign misstep setting off a nasty chain reaction of subsequent controversies after the campaign structure – in letting itself be spooked by the early articles about the five-state ad blitz targeting Senate Democrats (now being replayed in Philadelphia against Casey)—was its sudden “out-of-sight, out-of-mind” decision to not attend the legendary Al Smith Dinner run by the Catholic Archdiocese of New York. The consequences of that decision were immediate, just as predicted in this article, which saw it as a revelation of disarray in the Harris campaign. Donald Trump issued a series of social media posts detailing many of the anti-Catholic allegations against Harris; House Speaker Newt Gingrich charged that Harris is the most anti-Catholic presidential candidate in 150 years; J.D. Vance invoked the issue during the vice presidential debate; and two former ambassadors to the Holy See (James Nicholson on Larry Kudlow’s show, and Callista Gingrich in a series of articles) have spoken out on the Democrats’ failure to deal with the problem. 

Moreover, just weeks after Harris opted to sit out the Al Smith Dinner, in a viral social media post, Democrat Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer pretended to distribute Holy Communion to a left-wing podcaster in kneeling position—using a Dorito chip as a stand-in for the Eucharist while wearing a Harris-Walz hat, drawing intense criticism for the left’s anti-Catholic streak and from no less than Michigan’s conference of Catholic Bishops. Harris herself further compounded the ongoing controversy by sending a lame and seemingly sarcastic video to the Smith dinner in place of a personal appearance that seemed like something cooked up by SNL writers on an off day. 

Thus, the indecisiveness and inter-campaign turmoil displayed by the Harris team with its Al Smith dinner decision have become steadily more visible. Just yesterday, for instance, the New York Times reported that Harris-aligned PACs are condemning her campaign’s messaging that Donald Trump is a “fascist” as “a mistake in the closing stretch of the campaign.” Other pundits and analysts, too, have slammed Harris’s messaging as a “losing strategy” and insist that Harris has “lost the plot.” Some question the wisdom of being seen out campaigning with a Republican like Liz Cheney, while Joe Scarborough is urging a reversal on policy questions. 

Meanwhile, polling shows that Donald Trump maintains his lead on crucial issues like the economy, immigration, and foreign policy—as demonstrated by his habitual asking of the question, “Are you better off than you were four years ago?” at his signature campaign rallies. Trump’s favorability has risen, while Harris’s has declined, positioning him not only as the “change” candidate but, for some, even the more personable option. In response, some Democrat Senate candidates, like Casey, are now openly featuring Trump in their ads. 

Republicans are also gaining across the board, with undecided voters reportedly leaning towards Trump. Trump’s interview with Joe Rogan, which reached a whopping 35 million views in its first several days, and his rally at the iconic Madison Square Garden, which drew 20,000 supporters plus thousands more waiting outside, highlight this trend. This week, Trump will continue his active rally schedule—including an appearance in Green Bay, Wisconsin, that will feature former Green Bay Packers star Brett Favre—to further boost GOP early voting momentum. 

Although Kamala Harris still maintains several key systemic advantages—including in the realm of campaign funds—her prolonged conflicts on the campaign trail show that she continues to face massive headwinds, which could ultimately prove to fatally doom her floundering campaign one week from today. 

Should that happen, she may find that her own and Casey’s failures in hanging onto a traditionally Democrat Catholic vote in Pennsylvania by warding off the effects of the Kennedy and Frontiers of Freedom ads were factors that played no small role in that defeat. 

Equally, and perhaps more important, her campaign’s bumbling of the Catholic issue may be seen as an early tip off to the real problem in her try for the presidency – a deeply flawed campaign that raised in the minds of voters the politically fatal question for any candidate (see McGovern and Dukakis): “If she can’t run a campaign, how can she run a country?” 

Aaron Flanigan is the pen name of a writer in Washington, D.C. 

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Jim
Jim
21 hours ago

As a Catholic I thank you responders for proving the article’s point with your disgusting displays of anti-Catholic ignorance and hatred.

DisgustedwithElitism
DisgustedwithElitism
20 hours ago

Komrade Kommielala’s poor decision-making was made startlingly evident in her campaign’s first major selection, that to tap Tampon Tim as her running mate. That decision sacrificed substantial Jewish support and likely Pennsylvania by passing up Josh Shapiro.
Komrade Kommielala cannot please the Islamic population of Michigan, likely losing that state.
Komrade Kommielala’s abortion any time for any reason has lost her substantial support among Catholics.
It turns out, Komrade Kommielala and the Democrats are equal opportunity offenders, striving to not miss any chance to alienate even more swing-state voters. Keep up the good work, KK!

Moma Chaunce
Moma Chaunce
20 hours ago

Kids…Jesus is Lord.
Harris…wrong rally.
Bo, nah, no catholic issues here to see…move along.
Liberals are like incessant picnic ants…a few we just swat but come February 2025 we bring out the big can of Raid and work it.

Troy Savage
Troy Savage
18 hours ago

Everything she does is a blunder. Every policy and campaign tactic she is being urged to change. So is she being honest or just advised to lie to get elected.
her Hitler baloney is just meant to get out the base because she has given up on the middle

Jackie
Jackie
17 hours ago

It’s pretty obvious that when someone yells out Jesus is King at a Kamala rally and is told by Kamala herself that you are at the wrong rally, go down the street.That’s a pretty crystal clear indication that the leadership of the Democrat party is anti-religons, anti-american as our country was founded on religious freedom.It’s should be pretty clear to anyone that the democrat party has become the antichrist / anti-god party.Sure they put on big shows of believing in god and attending church but they never have the light of God / Jesus Christ in there hearts .

Paul Prescott
Paul Prescott
17 hours ago

Her candidacy is the sum and product of totalitarianism in the making. She is nothing more than a puppet for the progressive leftists which make up no more than one-sixth of the electorate (i.e. legal voters). Democrats are roughly one-third of all legally registered voters nationwide, of which I would assign a generous one-half are liberal progressives, albeit in Congress they are mostly extreme left-wingers. That leaves .333 times .5 which is .167 (one-sixth). Since 6 out of 5 people have trouble with fractions, and this includes 110% of all Democrats, this is a challenge for them.
The 110% was a satirical allusion to the voter turnout in certain districts in 2020.

Paul Prescott
Paul Prescott
17 hours ago

When Harris in particular stated her blatant disdain for religious objections for any medical professionals from performing abortions leads one to reminisce of Maoist China with the one child policy including both forced and selective abortions on the general population. It is also directly correlates with NAZI policies in the 1930s regarding state-sponsored genetic testing followed by ‘parental counseling’ (i.e. coercion) and eventual euthanasia of the “undesirables” or “deplorables” to quote Hilary, which includes all religious individuals.

anna hubert
anna hubert
16 hours ago

She gets her script and reads from it. I really don’t think she is capable of independent thinking. An ideal puppet.

ResistWeMuch
ResistWeMuch
16 hours ago

The current left’s politics is their religion and it doesn’t jive with any other religion. If you are a person of faith “(that is not faith in politics), I can’t see what the democrat party possibly has to offer you.

Paul Prescott
Paul Prescott
17 hours ago

Anti-Catholicism is coupled with anti-semitism for the current administration which despite their fondest desires to the opposite is Biden/Harris, and soon could be Harris/Walz, and certainly is not Trump whom asked RFK, a devout Catholic, to join him in his campaign. Sending a Christian heckler out of one of her competing rallies to one of Trump’s, and also snubbing Netanyahu is both symbolic and telling of her management style: bossy, bigoted, and elitist, of which Trump has exploited to her own demise.
She exibits the true characteristics of a fascist, such as a Hitler, which is exactly what she accuses Trump of with evidence every day proving her statements are categorically false. The psychological symptom is called projection, borne of a narcissistic, psychopathic personality disorder. No, one does not have to be a serial killer to be labeled a psychopath, only a severely anti-social, snobby, self-aggrandizing personality. Most Democrats, including my ex-wife who is supposedly Republican, display these traits. Examine her staffing shortages due to her attitude issues and also her commanding the removal of regular folks from a Pittsburgh restaurant in order to stage a campaign event for her bus tour entourage.

Michael Shields
Michael Shields
17 hours ago

Her abortion stand has fallen short because she shows no empathy for the child, or the emotional distress experienced by most women who have abortions. She doesn’t care. It’s just a political talking point.

Robert W israel
Robert W israel
14 hours ago

I grew up Catholic in the 50’s, when Catholics were Democrats. JFK pulled the bond tighter. Moderate NY Democratic politicians represented our interests and our lifestyle. Today’s party is more in favor of drag queens, rioters and trans surgery than respectable middle-class values. As Ronald Reagan said, the Democrat party left me.

Marie
Marie
15 hours ago

Kamala’s true hatred of Christians came from her own mouth. When a man at her rally shouted; “Jesus is Lord” and Kamala shouted back at him saying: “YOU ARE AT THE WRONG RALLY, GO DOWN THE STREET IN THAT SMALL RALLY.” and started laughing as if she was great in her evil response to him. She made a mockery out of a Christian’s praise of Jesus, that’ll seal her future. It shows how narcissistic she is that confirmed to us the remarks of her past staff are now true. God showed us again the character flaw of this woman, so listen to God’s warnings. May God bless us all with wisdom to see the flaw of her character, not fit for the Presidency.

David Ray
David Ray
16 hours ago

There is no place for Catholics in today’s Democrat Party.

Robert Zuccaro
Robert Zuccaro
16 hours ago

Kamala can’t answer when Nora Dunne, one of her ABC debate saviors, ask her about limitations on abortion. Because Kamala doesn’t believe there should be any… like Biden said “you ain’t black”, you ain’t Catholic if you vote for her… or not voting!

Marilyn Simunich- Idaho
Marilyn Simunich- Idaho
16 hours ago

Please get this article out on larger platforms!!

uncleferd
uncleferd
9 hours ago

Harris has the conscience and values of an insect. She uses the term “fascist” to describe her opposition, yet, she’s STILL demanding voters to commit to her campaign… without knowing a single thing about her own policies. Now THAT is a totalitarian dictator.

Kevin Griggs
Kevin Griggs
13 hours ago

Harris is running a very odd campaign, openly insulting 150 million Americans and then expect them to vote for you.
Pandering
If you don’t vote for her, you ain’t black.
Hitler Hitler Hitler Hitler Hitler Hitler
Don’t they realize everyone stops listening after the third Hitler?
They look and act desperate, and I love it

jcw
jcw
14 hours ago

Two videos back-to-back, the Whitmer Communion and Harris’ Mary Catherine skit could not make it more clear that Dems think Catholics are utterly disgusting. This Catholic returns the sentiment.

Jim
Jim
14 hours ago

We now have two data points that directly inform on Harris’s ineptitude at managing an organization. One is her 2018/29 campaign that simply floundered and sank of its inability to get any image of Harris to people that was in any way real. The second is this ugly mess of a current campaign. Infighting, inability to define messaging, or reveal any real policy positions coupled with her rambling, pointless, meandering answers to very direct questions mean that nobody knows who she is or what she stands for.
Being form California, the land of the shallow and superficial, she doesn’t understand that in the rest of America they really do need to see the real Kamala. I don’t like Trump but when he is talking there is zero doubt that is the real Trump. When Kamala is talking she sounds like she is incapable of any real thoughts. She seems like a mannequin dressed in a Hillary Clinton pants suit.

taek kenn
taek kenn
15 hours ago

When you try to please EVERYBODY,
You will please NOBODY.

David Millikan
David Millikan
7 hours ago

Dictator Beijing biden calls Trump Supporters ‘Garbage’. He should look in the mirror to see what ‘Garbage’ really is with Communist harris standing beside him.

Sandee Dempsey
Sandee Dempsey
8 hours ago

Kalama Harris wouldn’t be running this Country and we all know it.

David Millikan
David Millikan
1 hour ago

Communist harris can’t talk without a teleprompter and spoon fed answers.

Sarah Jackson
Sarah Jackson
6 hours ago

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David Millikan
David Millikan
7 hours ago

Funny how Communist harris makes closing arguments where the 1925 KKK Rally was held since the democrats are the ones who Founded the KKK. Talk about a hypocrite.

David Millikan
David Millikan
9 hours ago

Even DAN BONGINO was Banned from Communist YouTube because he wouldn’t bow down to LOSER WOKE media to support Communist harris. The Fake media in full force of CENSORSHIP for any American that doesn’t support their Communist Party agenda and narrative. More attacks on Free Speech by democrats and the Fake News/Social Media.
More reason to vote for President Trump.
As for Communist harris Anti-Catholic and going against GOD, well, I wouldn’t want to be her.

Rita Joseph
Rita Joseph
12 hours ago

President Trump’s practical skills are needed right now—not Kamala’s radical socialist experiments.
President Trump is a practical man. He can do what he says he will do. Americans can rely on his commitment to restart economic recovery and restore law and order. The astonishing economic success of his first three years of office is reassuring. It still attests to excellent managerial skills and to an ability to harness the energy and gutsy self-confidence of practical good-hearted American people.
It is a realistic recovery plan that poor little hand waving, incessantly laughing Kamala and her left-leaning socialist Democrat colleagues have neither the appetite nor the practical skills to accomplish. 

John Shipway
John Shipway
11 hours ago

I don’t get it. All this pro Catholic stuff among candidates that have sold their souls to Zionism. How can one bloviate regarding “love thy neighbor’ while supporting and even providing gratis the weapons used to ethnic cleanse Palestinian women, children and their elderly? RFK Jr sure is all in on the “kill the dirty animals” apartheid mass murder band wagon as is of course Kamela and Tampon Tim. What is sad is, that at least on the campaign trail President Trump too appears to have been bought and paid for by the Israeli lobbyists with some not so gentle prompting from that bed wetting son in law he has been plagued with. I will still vote for President Trump if for no other reason than he is not Kamela Harris but please President Trump force Israel to get off the genocide band wagon and do so by cutting all funding to the genocidal maniacs.

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