The Catholic swing vote appears to have gone to Obama yesterday, with most exit poling showing the Democrat make huge gains among Catholics over John Kerry's results in 2004. Beliefnet.com has some interesting numbers, along with commentary from Beliefnet editor Steven Waldman.

Both the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal are running stories on the Catholic vote today. NYT is focusing on how abortion is again becoming the deciding issue in the battleground state of Pennsylvania.

With news of Bristol Palin's pregnancy--at five months, it could hardly have been a secret to anyone--the presidential race is acquiring a stranger-than-fiction feel. What I've found funniest is the way the media has been running to every Christian conservative leader to ask what they "think about" the pregnancy of the GOP's VP candidate's unmarried teenage daughter.

So it's official: Obama picked a Catholic. Well, he picked a Senator that can burnish his foreign policy credentials, but Biden's Catholicism has to be considered a factor in the mix. Not only is Biden Catholic, he is a regular Sunday communicant at two parishes, despite his consistent pro-abortion voting record.

Two Catholic governors are on the short list for the Democratic vice presidential candidate, according to an article in The New Republic. Kathleen Sebelius, governor of Kansas, and Tim Kaine, governor of Virginia, are both said to be on the close to the top of possible choices. Both have executive experience, and both are governors of so-called "red states" key to an Obama victory.