The preachy tone of Obama will not appeal to many Roman Catholic voters in Pennsylvania or elsewhere. The media has made much of "the black vote" in the run-up to the 2008 election, but little has been said about "the Catholic vote." Roman Catholics comprise a much, much larger slice of the electorate than African-Americans, which can make it even more difficult to generalize about "the Catholic vote" than it is to generalize about "the black vote." Still, though, we try endlessly.
Obama narrowly won the state of Connecticut, which is particularly rich in Catholic voters. But Hillary has won the Catholic strongholds of Massachusetts, New York, Texas, and California. Pennsylvania is likely to go her way as well. While Mrs. Clinton is not a Catholic, she avoids the preachy tone Obama has often used.
Roman Catholics and Evangelical Protestants differ in many ways. Until gay marriage became a burning social issue in the late 1990s, Roman Catholics and Evangelical Protestants rarely banded together. When it seemed that Hawaii might legalize gay marriage, though, Conservative Catholics and Evangelical Protestants agreed to join forces to fight not only gay marriage but abortion as well. That political alliance overcame more than a century of distrust and distance between American Catholics and Protestants.
One of many differences between these two cultures is preaching style. Obama follows the example of many black preachers and civil rights leaders in the way he speaks; this style will strike many Catholics as foreign. It's not so much that Catholics don't like it (although they don't much care for it) as it is that they just aren't used to it. The tone will strike many Catholics as self-righteous, accusing, holier-than-thou. At the same time, the emotional tone of many Protestant preachers will appeal to many, for the way it spoons out emotion and conviction. Catholics, generally speaking, are accustomed to a solemn monotone which communicates a different kind of certainty - it's almost as if (mostly white) Catholic priests say "I have God on my side, and so I don't need to try to persuade you."
How very interesting that when Obama gave his much-discussed speech in Philadelphia, a denunciation of the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, he abandoned the evangelizing tone and spoke like an ordinary guy from New Jersey. Obama clearly knows what he is doing, and he will drop the preachy tone when it suits him. The potential problem here is that Obama's inconsistent tone may feed into cultural confusion, as he sometimes sounds like Martin Luther King, Jr. and, at other times, like many a white politician.
To the extent that voters choose to back someone they feel comfortable with, Obama would do well to approach Catholic voters in Pennsylvania in the vocal tone he used to great effect in the Philadelphia speech prompted by Rev. Wright. In order to distance himself from Wright, Obama spoke in a tone that contrasted with, rather than mirrored, his own pastor's. Catholic voters in Pennsylvania -perhaps as many as one out of every three who turn out on the 22nd- are noticing the way Obama speaks to them.
