Western Ohio's Catholic Voters Have Clout

When Catholics first began worshipping at St. John the Baptist Church here, a presidential campaign rife with racial overtones was raging across the country.

An up-and-coming U.S. senator from Illinois was battling an older, well-respected veteran politician. The year: 1860. The candidates: Abraham Lincoln and Stephen A. Douglas.

Ed Dock of Tipp City doesn't consider himself old at 83 and he certainly wasn't around for that election. But he's been a faithful voter for decades, and this year he'll cast an absentee ballot to avoid the two-hour wait he experienced at the last presidential election.

"I'll hold onto that absentee ballot until the end," he said. "I just haven't made up my mind."

John Hitchens, 51, an airline pilot from Tipp City, knows whom he'll vote for -- any candidate who opposes abortion. It's the deciding factor for him, regardless of all other issues.

"The basis for any society is the right to life," he said last week after the morning Mass at St. John. "Whoever we elect this time could have a huge impact on the Supreme Court."

Although Hitchens likes Republican presidential candidate John McCain, he's wildly enthusiastic about Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, McCain's running mate. "I'd certainly vote for her in a heartbeat," he said.

The once reliably Democratic Catholic voting bloc is no longer reliable and not so Democratic. Still, Ohio has more than 2 million Catholics.

And the Catholic vote has particular clout in western Ohio, including the Dayton area and 13 rural counties north and east of the city. That area alone accounts for nearly 500,000 Catholics in 221 parishes, more than any other part of the state except Cleveland, says the Catholic Conference of Ohio. About one out of four voters is Catholic; the percentage on Election Day might be higher, as Catholics are generally more faithful about going to the polls than other voters.

The Rev. John Putka, a Marianist priest and political-science professor at the University of Dayton, is convinced that "The Catholic vote is going to decide the election."