Democratic Catholic activists who've worked in Ohio are thrilled to have one of their own on a national ticket again.
U.S. Sen. Joe Biden (D-Del.) has received rave reviews from two people who work to get Democrats' message out to Catholic voters.
Mara Vanderslice worked for Gov. Ted Strickland's 2006 campaign and currently heads the Matthew 25 political action committee. Vanderslice said Biden can make the case to voters less from specific issues in a speech and more from the fact that he can vouch for Obama as a member of the same community as voters in areas like Youngstown, Toledo and Steubenville.
"For me he brings a working-class cultural background, growing up in Scranton and working-class areas in Delaware. I feel like he takes his Catholic faith very seriously. I think that he will culturally connect to the kinds of voters Obama needs to win," she said.
Democratic Catholic activists who've worked in Ohio are thrilled to have one of their own on a national ticket again.
U.S. Sen. Joe Biden (D-Del.) has received rave reviews from two people who work to get Democrats' message out to Catholic voters.
Mara Vanderslice worked for Gov. Ted Strickland's 2006 campaign and currently heads the Matthew 25 political action committee. Vanderslice said Biden can make the case to voters less from specific issues in a speech and more from the fact that he can vouch for Obama as a member of the same community as voters in areas like Youngstown, Toledo and Steubenville.
"For me he brings a working-class cultural background, growing up in Scranton and working-class areas in Delaware. I feel like he takes his Catholic faith very seriously. I think that he will culturally connect to the kinds of voters Obama needs to win," she said.
Vanderslice said Biden has been a model for working to bring peace to other countries, especially Darfur in the Sudan, in accordance with the Catholic Church's near-universal opposition to war. Of course Biden did vote to authorize the use of force in Iraq in 2002. On abortion, Vanderslice said Obama's selection of Biden shows he's willing to find common ground on the issue because Biden supported the ban on partial-birth abortion and opposes public funding for abortion. Obama said he wouldn't have voted for the 2003 abortion ban because it insufficiently protected Roe v. Wade and currently supports some federal funding of abortions.
"I think that's another signal that Obama is willing to find common ground in the middle on the abortion issue. Biden has a very moderate position on it. I think really he can talk about it in terms of his Catholic faith that he's against abortion but doesn't think criminalization is the answer," Vanderslice said.
Catholic Democrats of Ohio chair Lisa Schare said she's pleased with the pick.
"I'm very glad that he picked a catholic vice president," she said.
Schare said Biden should tell Catholics that there is a "Catholic case for Obama," specifically on abortion because he can credibly make the case that the party wants to reduce abortions, as it's committed in its new platform. The platform says the party supports the right to an abortion, but wants increased access to family planning services, sex education, health care and post-natal services that all seek to "reduce the number of unintended pregnancies and thereby also reduce the need for abortions."
Molly Smith, head of Cleveland Right to Life thinks Biden's relatively moderate stance on abortion to Obama will fail to make the ticket look moderate because Biden still supports abortion rights.
"I don't think it's going to work in this instance, when you're talking about a social-conservative view point," Smith said. "He's definitely not as extreme as Obama on these issues, but he's still pro-abortion - he still supports that right."
Smith said while Obama's choice of a Catholic aims to bring in voters on matters of social justice, Biden's disagreement with the Catholic Church on legal abortion rights will draw more attention to the issue of abortion and hurt the Democratic ticket.
"It's probably a smart move but it will probably backlash," she said. "It will draw more attention to it."
In a story that gained prominent attention yesterday, the Archbishop of Denver called on Biden to refuse communion - a sacred rite and integral part of Mass in the church - because he supports abortion rights.
