The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops have announced
a campaign opposing the death penalty, citing a belief that public opinion is shifting on the issue.
There is speculation that this might cause friction between Catholics and evangelical Christians who form a culturally conservative alliance around the issues of abortion and gay marriage.
I know that some people on the left have a knee-jerk reaction against the Catholic Church, but they do belong in the Democratic Party.
Research shows that evangelical Christians oppose abortion more as a matter of sexual morality, while Catholics oppose abortion due to a sincere concern for human life, an attitude that leads to concern over war and a desire to address the economic plight of the poor. I would argue that the latter is a progressive mindset. After all, so many liberal stalwarts happen to be Catholics. Although there are certainly reactionary Catholics, there is something culturally Catholic that predisposes one to a progressive (not liberal!) political mentality. One of the unstressed stories of the decline of Democratic power has been a failure to energize what once was a Catholic base of the party.
The death penalty gives disenchanted Catholics a chance to find a highly visible issue on which they agree with Democrats. Creating positive affect for Democrats on some issues makes it easier for voters to think about voting for us when given an objectionable Republican candidate.
Now, it's not clear that the death penalty can be used as a wedge issue, and you can be assured that the Republicans will pull every political trick they can to avoid that scenario, but there is an opportunity here. Democratic politicians obeying a truce on issues such as abortion in order to form a united front against the death penalty can go a long way towards projecting an image that our party is not inherently opposed to religion. It's quite a task to try to insert the death penalty into abortion debates to drive a wedge between groups, while keeping abortion out of death penalty debates.
Furthermore, making the death penalty an issue highlights the entire justice system which gives us the opening to make torture and Attorney General Alberto Gonzales more of an issue. We can hang Republicans as the "Party of Murder and Torture" due to their support of both the death penalty and torture.