'Moral values' dominated the American post-election headlines in 2004. Analysts pointed to exit polls, strong turnout among evangelicals, and controversy over gay marriage as evidence that the election had been decided along religious lines. Soon, however, this explanation was called into question. In A Matter of Faith, distinguished scholars go beyond the headlines to assess the role of religion in the 2004 election. Were issues such as stem cell research really more influential than the economy and Iraq? Did deeply religious Americans necessarily vote Republican? Was the morality factor really a dramatic new development? David E. Campbell and his colleagues examine the religious affiliations of voters and party elites and evaluate the claim that moral values were decisive in 2004.
David E. Campbell is the John Cardinal O'Hara, C.S.C. Associate Professor of Political Science and a research fellow with the Institute for Educational Initiatives at the University of Notre Dame. He is the author of Why We Vote: How Schools and Communities Shape Our Civic Life (Princeton University Press, 2006) and a coauthor or coeditor of The Education Gap: Vouchers and Urban Schools (Brookings, revised 2006), Democracy at Risk (Brookings, 2005), and Charters, Vouchers, and Public Education (Brookings, 2001).
"Students of elections and those interested in religion and American politics will find this volume useful reading. Recommended." - CHOICE, 11/1/2007 |"This is one of the best of the recent political books and constitutes essential reading for the 2008 campaign." - Voice of Reason |"This volume is an unequivocal success, and is highly recommended for anyone interested in understanding the various roles of religion in contemporary American electoral politics. Individually, the studies are of a uniformly high quality, and are both substantively and methodologically quite sophisticated. Taken together, these chapters indicate that the roles of religion in political behavior are complex and subtle, and stand as a rebuke to more parsimonious characterizations of political religion, such as the 'culture wars' thesis." -Ted G. Jelen, University of Nevada, Las Vegas, Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion |"What makes this book especially worth recommending is that it covers in depth topics that are relatively less explored in the literature, such as the microtargeting of religious constituencies by Monson and Oliphant, the stem cell issue by Barbara Norrander and Jan Norrander, Latinos by David Leal, and the religious left by Kellstedt, Smidt, Green, and Guth.... It is one of the strongest collections of essays I have read in some time." -Clyde Wilcox, Georgetown University, Sociology of Religion |" A Matter of Faith takes an important step toward describing and explaining how religion affects presidential elections. It also raises vital questions that will stimulate the next generation of research on presidential elections. Consequently, the volume is essential reading for students of presidential elections." -Brian Newman, Pepperdine University, Presidential Studies Quarterly
