Photo courtesy of the Daily Yonder

When I was growing up I thought that all Irish Americans were Catholic and that all Irish Catholics were, as my father liked to call us, “good solid Democrats.”  Then, around the time I was in middle school, something strange happened.  My grandparents, who absolutely idolized JFK, RFK, and all things Kennedy, voted for Ronald Reagan.

It turns out that they were part of a trend, and that (as everyone knows) in the years since the Reagan Revolution the Catholic vote has turned steadily Republican, as churchgoing Catholics have become allied with Evangelicals and other more conservative Protestants to become a bloc known as “Values Voters.”  There has been much talk this election cycle about whether Values Voters are going to remain a cohesive group, or split into factions, or even swing Democrat.  The polling has been, at best, equivocal and unconvincing.  We hear about “emerging”…