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DALLAS - President Bush reached out to Roman Catholic voters on Tuesday, telling a convention of Catholic activists that he considers them vital allies in his efforts to support religious charities, defend traditional marriage and promote a ''culture of life'' in America.
''You have a friend in this administration. You have somebody who wants to work with you to change America for the better,'' Bush told about 2,500 cheering delegates and family members at a Knights of Columbus convention.
The president's speech at the Dallas convention was billed as an official White House event, but the tone and substance more closely resembled a campaign rally.
The nation's 65 million Catholics account for about 25 percent of the vote nationwide, and polls indicate that they're almost evenly split between Bush and Democratic Sen. John Kerry. Matthew Wilson, a political scientist at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, said Catholics accounted for roughly a third of the vote in Pennsylvania, Ohio and Michigan, all of which could play decisive roles in the election.
Although Bush is Methodist and Kerry is Catholic, their religious affiliations seem to make little difference to most Catholic voters.
In fact, Bush is more popular than Kerry among observant Catholics, who tend to share the president's opposition to abortion, gay marriage and unlimited research on stem cells taken from human embryos.
Kerry, a former altar boy who says he considered joining the priesthood, does better with less-observant Catholics and with most Hispanic Catholics, who traditionally support Democrats. ''The more seriously religious Catholics are, the less likely they are in this race to support the Catholic candidate. Catholicism means more to them than someone else saying, 'I'm Catholic, too,''' said Wilson, who's writing a book on Catholic voting patterns. ''It shows how far we've come since 1960.''
Some conservative Catholic bishops have suggested that Kerry should be denied Communion because of his political views. He says he opposes abortion but doesn't want to impose his views on others. Kerry opposes gay marriage, but supports state rights to sanction civil unions among same-sex couples and opposes amending the Constitution to outlaw gay marriage.