Bottom line: I could never understand a Catholic voting for Obama or others of his ilk. However, I can’t reconcile that with my love for my aunt. That is what makes this issue more confusing than it ought to be.

1) McCain has never shown great affection for social-issues voters; there’s little evidence it’s a top priority for him personally.
2) McCain would be able to do little to impact the legality of abortion with a Democrat Senate majority voting on his SCOTUS appointments.
3) McCain and Obama both support ESCR.
4) As there is little chance of change in the current abortion regime, and even the FOCA would only have marginal effects (arguendo), the other issues become more salient.
5) Obama’s proposals to expand health care coverage, his initial opposition to Iraq, his willingness to expand programs that care for the poor etc. are more in line with many parts of Catholic Social Teaching than Obama’s.
6) Obama shows the type of temperament and intelligence that we should look for in a President.
7) As many conservatives have noted (e.g. Will, Noonan, etc.), McCain appears to react instinctively, finding ‘bad guys’ rather than reflectively. Given the challenges the next President will face, it would be best to have a President more adept at analytically addressing problems.

I don’t agree with many of these assumptions, but I think someone reasonably could hold them (or others) which make Obama the lesser of two evils.

“8. So can a Catholic in good conscience support a “pro-choice” candidate? The answer is: I can’t and I won’t. But I do know some serious Catholics — people whom I admire — who will. I think their reasoning is mistaken. But at the very least they do sincerely struggle with the abortion issue, and it causes them real pain. And even more importantly: They don’t keep quiet about it; they don’t give up their efforts to end permissive abortion; they keep lobbying their party and their elected representatives to change their pro-abortion views and protect the unborn. Catholics can support “pro-choice” candidates if they support them despite — not because of — their “pro-choice” views. But they also need a compelling proportionate reason to justify it.

9. What is a “proportionate” reason when it comes to the abortion issue? It’s the kind of reason we will be able to explain, with a clean heart, to the victims of abortion when we meet them face to face in the next life — which we most certainly will. If we’re confident that these victims will accept our motives as something more than an alibi, then we can proceed.”

I also agree with Archbishop Nauman and Bishop Finn:

“Could a Catholic in good conscience vote for a candidate who supports legalized abortion when there is a choice of another candidate who does not support abortion or any other intrinsically evil policy? Could a voter’s preference for the candidate’s positions on the pursuit of peace, economic policies benefiting the poor, support for universal health care, a more just immigration policy, etc. overcome a candidate’s support for legalized abortion? In such a case, the Catholic voter must ask and answer the question: What could possibly be a proportionate reason for the more than 45 million children killed by abortion in the past 35 years? Personally, we cannot conceive of such a proportionate reason. ”

http://www.catholic.org/politics/story.php?id=29432&page=2

Would it be better to say that Obama supports child murderers?

I can’t imagine anyone with a good conscience voting for Obama… now I can understand voting Third Party who doesn’t support abortion (because of Mclame’s support of e. stem cells), but let us be real…

good conscience should never be used in the same sentence with voting for Obama.

I will definitely argue that their conscience is misinformed… BIG TIME!