LAUSR

This is a well-written, useful book. Nesmith provides a succinct analysis of the New Christian Right's entry into American politics in the late 1970s, its role in the elections of the 1980s, and its future prospects as a political force. The main focus is on the interplay between the strategy of presidential politics in the 1980s and the part that white evangelical Protestants played in the political arena of the day. There is a nice fit between Nesmith's field research where he interviewed important political professionals Lee Atwater, Lyn Nofziger and others and his use of data from American National Election Studies (ANES). The interviews offer key insights into the Republican strategy that was designed to bring evangelicals into a new electoral coalition. The analysis of the ANES data sheds light on the outcomes of that strategy. Following the standard scholarly archaeologies of the New Christian Right, Nesmith locates an electoral turning point in Jimmy Carter's successful campaign for the presidency in 1976. Carter was a Southern Democrat, a governor of Georgia, and a born-again Christian. He invoked the born-again attribute in his appeal for votes a new tactic in American presidential politics. Running in the wake of Vietnam, Watergate, the pardon of Richard Nixon, and the Iran hostage incident, Carter was perceived by many as a reform candidate who would bring moral purity to the White House and, on account of his Southern Baptist born-again background, take up the cause of the socio-moral issues stirring in America in the 1970s: school prayer, abortion, etc. By winning in 1976 Carter proved that being a Southern white born-again Christian was not a liability in presidential politics. In the course of his presidency he also proved inadvertently, no doubt that merely presenting an evangelical Christian image was not enough as far as born-again voters were concerned. Action was expected on sociomoral issues.