Keeping the Faith

How two preachers are tugging their parties away from the center

The candidate is an ordained and militant Protestant minister, crusading to wrench his party from the clutches of the moderates he scorns. But he does so < in the manner of a polished TV performer: he is immaculately attired in a dark suit, handsome, poised, physically commanding, capable of speaking with cool irony as well as passionate rhetoric. His constituency, built on a network of local churches, follows him with a fervor that is the envy of more conventional politicians. He provokes so much opposition from his party's mainstream that only a miracle could win him the 1988 presidential nomination, yet...

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