Professor Bainbridge: "Will Catholic Reaganites Go for Obama?"

(Hat tip: Tertium Quid at From Burke to Kirk and Beyond ...)

Professor Bainbridge gets his shots in at Professor Kmiec's assertion that Obama is a "natural for the Catholic vote", and, in doing so, lists the sort of qualities/policies that might actually make one a "Catholic natural":

Rejects moral relativism

Supports the separation of church and state, but also believes that religion has a proper place in the public square

Subsidiarity is the candidate’s guiding principle on questions of the role of the government

Supports a ban on abortion

Supports a ban on embryonic stem cell research and cloning

Opposes the death penalty absent very unusual circumstances unlikely to arise in modern society

Believes that while the resort to military force is permissible when the circumstances allow a just war, peace is the default choice

Rejects the secular utopianism that claims humans can perfect themselves, while acknowledging that all must seek to work out their own salvation

Rejects socialism’s command and control of the economy, but also believes in the preferential option for the poor

Believes in private property, but also in the right of society to address market failures

Believes workers have a right to form unions

Believes that government has a role in assuring that society collectively acts as good stewards of creation

[Read the whole thing]

My Comments:
Looks to me like Professor Bainbridge's "Catholic natural" construct is a fairly close description of the sort of candidate we might have had if Sam Brownback had been able to catch fire.


Previous Pro Ecclesia posts on this subject:
Deal Hudson: "Preacher Man: Barack Obama and the the Gospel of Liberalism"

"Sorry, Doug Kmiec, But This Catholic Isn't Buying Obama"

Ramesh Ponnuru on Douglas Kmiec and "Catholic Reaganites for Obama" [UPDATED]

Romney Advisor Says Obama "a Natural for the Catholic Vote"

Obama "Post-Partisan"? Ask John Roberts

Obama and the "Pragmatic Center"