Numbers and Records

At America, Michael Sean Winters continues the ad intra slice-and-dice:

The "faithful remnant" of the GOP is confined to those parts of the country that are the least Catholic: the deep South and the Prairie states. The states that are most Catholic – Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania - are also the states that are the bluest of the blue....

Latino Catholics appear to have been decisive in flipping three states from red to blue: New Mexico, Colorado and Nevada. Colorado’s nine electoral votes swung into the Obama column with a strong 53% to 46% win and in New Mexico the margin was even larger: 57% for Obama to McCain’s 42%. In Nevada, 55% of the vote went to Obama and McCain took 43%. If Obama delivers comprehensive immigration reform, these three states and their 19 electoral votes will be blue for a generation. They will also likely be joined by Arizona, which might have joined the shift this year had it not been for the home turf advantage McCain enjoyed. Nine points separated the candidates in Arizona, and the state’s ten electoral votes are low-hanging fruit for the Democrats next election.

Latinos are the fastest growing part of the electorate and young voters are just beginning to define their political loyalties. Obama won both groups convincingly: 67% of Latinos nationwide and 66% of voters age 18-29. That bodes well for the future of the Democratic Party.

...still to come: the closest thing we'll get to a comprehensive Vatican reaction -- the wrap-piece from the Pope's daily, L'Osservatore Romano.

In the meantime, top name in circulation for Secretary of State: John Kerry, elected to his fifth Senate term last night... yet not ruling anything out.

If it happened, that'd mean an unprecedented Romish trifecta -- numbers 1, 2, and 4 in the line of succession (VP, Speaker, State). 

In other words, enough to have the Know-Nothings spinning in their graves... joined, in one of history's stranger couplings, by a chorus of the folks whose churches they once torched.

PHOTO: AFP/Getty

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