Mitt Romney and his wife Ann

What to make of the fact that Rick Santorum lost the Catholic vote in both Michigan and Arizona to Romney?

Quite a lot really. Two immediate things, Catholics are clearly more moderate than Rick and secondly, many were scared off by the militant rhetoric Santorum let loose with during the past week.

Amazingly, it wasn't even close.

CBS's exit polls showed that 37 percent of Catholic voters in Michigan supported Santorum while 43 per cent were behind Romney.

CNN exit polls in Arizona showed Romney beat Santorum among Catholic voters by a margin of 41 percent to 35 percent.

Flip that number and Santorum wins Michigan and probably ends Romney's hopes.

Santorum was his own worst enemy with Catholics, scaring the bejabbers out of many of them, especially women with his hostile rhetoric about birth control and no exception for abortion even rape, incest and the life of the mother.


When white middle class Catholics are voting for a Mormon not a fellow religionist it shows things have changed since 1960.

Back then Kennedy got almost every Catholic vote because they were a beleaguered minority.

Nowadays Catholics are utterly mainstream (six Supreme Court Judges) and have no fear of voting across religious lines.

That's good news for Romney.

One could hardly imagine Mormons voting for Catholics against one of their own just yet at least but that day may come.

In the meantime Rick Santorum must be left scratching his head wondering where his Catholic vote went.