Evangelical élites could be heard in the foyers and fellowship halls, on retreats and at private gatherings, insisting that a person could not be a Christian and a Democrat.
—Charles Marsh, Wayward Christian Soldiers: Freeing the Gospel from Political Captivity

Really? I guess I don't hang out with the right people. Some of my best friends are Democrats, not to mention Books & Culture's editorial board, where Democrats are well-represented. Me, I'm a Republican Absurdist, which is handy as we enter the climactic year of the 2008 campaign. (By the way, for a take on evangelical élites that differs in some ways from Charles Marsh's, see Michael Lindsay's new book Faith in the Halls of Power, reviewed on p. 33 by Brad Wilcox.)

America's publishers, conscious as always of their civic duty, are cranking out all manner of books geared to the election cycle. There's Matt Bai's The Argument: Billionaires, Bloggers, and the Battle to Remake Democratic Politics (Penguin Press) and Amy Sullivan's The Party Faithful: How Democrats Can Close the God Gap, due in February from Scribner. Also coming in February, and highly recommended, is Beyond Left and Right: Helping Christians Make Sense of American Politics (Baker), by Books & Culture contributor Amy Black. There are campaign biographies galore (some of them featuring subjects who are already out of the running). There's even a book by a professor of psychology at Emory University, Drew Westen—The Political Brain: The Role of Emotion in Deciding the Fate of the Nation (Public Affairs)—tracing recent Democratic failures to the party's touching but misplaced faith in rational argument. Republicans, on the other hand, have thrived because they've learned how to tap into voters' emotions.

The best book I've seen so far to prompt reflection on what we're doing as we prepare to elect a new president is Edward Larson's A Magnificent Catastrophe: The Tumultuous Election of 1800, America's First Presidential ...

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