ABSTRACT
There is a hidden religious power base in American culture that secular biases prevent many from noticing. The most understated demographic reality in the United States is the huge number of evangelical Protestants, Jimmy Carter's natural constituency. But when Jimmy Carter speaks, millions of Protestant Americans experience a sudden smack of recognition. When commentators marvel at Carter's broad appeal, it is because highly educated people hardly ever study the lives of the vast majority of American Protestants. Carter's role for evangelical Christians may be rather like John F. Kennedy's for Catholics. The symbolic tradition on which Carter draws so effectively is one of five major symbol systems among American Protestants. Carter took a leaf from Sherman's march on Atlanta and has sneaked around the outskirts of the dominant northeastern Protestant style by a sudden sweep through Iowa and New Hampshire.
