Good for him. I'm kind of liking this whole "President" thing. In all seriousness, we now have a trend. The President has been digging in his heels, in the face of political bullies, for a good six months now, and he doesn't seem to be stopping. And it's been helping him in the polls. I've always said that people want their leaders to lead, even if they don't agree with them - they want strong leaders who know what they want.
Of course that isn't the only reason President Obama is sticking to his guns. Perhaps this new PPP poll, showing that most Catholics support the President and not the Catholic bishops, must have something to do with it. And keep in mind, PPP is possibly the best polling outfit out there.
Key findings from the survey include:Cardinal Obama seems to have outranked, and outflanked, the old pedophile-enablers in the eyes of the Catholic faithful.
-57% of Catholic voters support the new policy President Obama announced yesterday allowing women who work for religiously-affiliated hospitals and universities to receive coverage for prescription birth control without requiring Catholic institutions to pay for the coverage directly. Only 29% oppose the policy because they believe it still goes too far in requiring birth control coverage; additionally 5% oppose it because they think Catholic hospitals and universities should be required to pay for this coverage. Catholic women are particularly positive toward the policy, with 59% of them expressing support.
-With the inclusion of President Obama’s solution for religiously-affiliated institutions, Catholics favor the requirement that health plans cover prescription birth control by a margin of 54% to 42%. Catholic Democrats (80% - 17%) favor the requirement by virtually the same margin that Catholic Republicans (16% - 79%) oppose it; significantly, politically independent Catholics favor the requirement by an 18-point margin (56% to 38%). Catholic women also favor it by an 18-point margin, while Catholic men favor it by a 4-point margin.
-This issue has the potential to cause Mitt Romney trouble with Catholic voters in the fall. 51% say they side with Barack Obama on this issue, while only 38% prefer
Romney’s position. Hispanic Catholics, a group Romney must make in roads with, go with Obama 59/32 on the policy and Catholic women do so by a 54/35 margin. Catholics ave been a key swing voting group in recent elections, supporting George W. Bush in 2004 and then Obama in 2008. Obama’s even-handed approach on this issue has him positioned well with Catholics for the fall.
-Congressional Republicans risk losing their majority in the House and squandering any opportunities in the Senate by continuing attacks on the popular birth control benefit.
It's all well and good that the Catholic bishops think they rule the world. They don't. Neither does the Pope. He rules Catholics. Well, actually he rules a minority of Catholics in this country. And he certainly doesn't have the right to tell any of the rest of us non-Catholics, or our elected officials, what to do. I voted for President Obama, I didn't vote for the Pope. The Catholic bishops are entitled to their opinion, but that's all it is. An opinion. And its their opinion, not the opinion of Catholics in America.
And I'll say it again. I don't want a bunch of guys who excuse and enable pedophilia lecturing the rest of us about morality. No moral credibility whatsoever.
