Anyone have paper towels for the spilled milk?

Doing their post-election wrap up, today's Star Ledger has an article which blames Tuesday's defeat of the $450 million stem cell ballot question on two "forces":

"Supporters failed to grasp an unintentional alliance of two forces: public discontent with the state's borrowing, and the work of conservatives and religious leaders who opposed the ballot question's passage."

"Religious leaders"? Why, whomever could they mean? Read further:

"Last month, Catholic bishops in the state sent letters to all churches explaining the Catholic position against embryonic stem cell research. Pastors read the letters at Mass and put them in church bulletins, said James Goodness, a spokesman for the Newark Archdiocese. The dioceses also produced a 14-minute video with the Knights of Columbus.

'I think that certainly a number of people did hear what the bishops had to say about the Catholic Church's position and were moved by that,' Goodness said."