Mary statue wards off Kerry

A reader of Mike Brown's excellent Catholic faith-based site Spirit Daily has an interesting note on the political campaign today (Spirit Daily: CAMPAIGN WANTED VIRGIN REMOVED):

Dear Spirit Daily,

In reference to the article, "Catholics May Tip Scales for Bush" on your website, I just thought I'd add my personal experience with Kerry. I am a pro-life Republican. My husband is a very involved, pro-union Democrat, strongly supporting Kerry. We live in Delaware County and when Kerry was beginning his "porch tours," we were approached by the Delaware County Democratic representative for Kerry, a Mr. Tom Hickey, to have Kerry come to our home in Upper Darby to hold a press conference on our front porch.

"When Mr. Hickey, came to set up the logistics of our home as a possible site and saw the Blessed Mother statue in front of our home, I was told by him that we would have to remove the Blessed Mother statue before Kerry could appear on our porch. This request was vehemently refused and our house was out of the running -- thank God! After this incident I wrote a heartfelt letter to Kerry explaining the whole occurrence and asking him personally to respond as to whether this was indeed his stand, refusing to appear at a home with a visible Blessed Mother statue, since he is trying to pass himself off as a practicing Catholic.

"The response I received was a form letter thanking me for my support of the Kerry-Edwards team and a bumper sticker for my car -- which I promptly threw in the trash. Nowhere in that letter did I offer any hint of support -- I was simply asking for clarification. He is a fraud and I think Catholics should know of his refusal to in anyway be associated with a family who are practicing Catholics, even though four out of the five people in my family are Democrats (all but myself). Thanks for listening."

Is this case of campaign malpractice, losing votes in your extended base because you are afraid to offend your hard-core supporters? Or is it possible that the Kerry campaign shuns overt signs of Catholic religiosity for simpler reasons such as it makes them uncomfortable?

You have to wonder how many other would-be Kerry voters have been offended in similar instances.