The Losing Record of Successful Culture Warriors

The nasty rhetoric of this year's presidential nominating campaigns is mild stuff compared to what John Adams and Thomas Jefferson said about each other in the campaign of 1880. Jefferson was even accused of being a secret Jew or a Muslim — anticipating what's been whispered about Barack Obama. When they become political, America's culture wars take on a similar pattern. That's according to Stephen Prothero, Professor of Religion at Boston University and author of Why Liberals Win the Culture Wars (Even When They Lose Elections).