"This book examines the role of religion, race, and gender in the American presidency over the past forty years with special attention to elections from 1996 to 2004. It tracks trends, counterintuitive findings, and then analyzes case studies of how recent presidents sought to win over key voting constituencies: mainline Protestants, Evangelicals, Catholics, seculars, women, Jews, Muslims, Asian Americans, African Americans, and Latinos. It also includes a brief capstone chapter that updates the book by showing how many of these constituencies voted in the 2008 election. "--Back cover.