When government professor Clyde Wilcox decided to write one of the first Ph.D. dissertations on the Christian Right 25 years ago, he had no idea how much of a challenge he would encounter in jump-starting his academic career.

Many academics at the time viewed the rise of the moral majority as a passing trend, he says.

"I actually started out with a dissertation on congressional voting," Wilcox recalls. "It's just that I couldn't get myself excited about it. Then, suddenly about that time, the moral majority started in Ohio."

Coming from West Virginia, a place where he says politics and religion are fused closely, the topic caught his interest.

Yet, despite receiving top honors for his work at Ohio State University -- where he received his master's and doctoral degrees in political science, Wilcox recalls being asked more than once during his first few job interviews, "Why would anyone write about this?" He remembers one interviewer even saying, "You know, I really like you except that you've studied this topic that won't be around very long."

"That dean is not around anymore," Wilcox says, and laughs.

Now Wilcox's expertise in the topic is in demand because these days, a large number of politicians seek the conservative bloc's support.

Even the selection of current Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin has been seen as a strategic move to entice the evangelical base, he says.

"The choice itself I think is really interesting from (Senator John) McCain's viewpoint, because McCain was leaning very much toward (Senator Joe) Lieberman and (former Homeland Security Secretary Tom) Ridge," Wilcox says. "And they were both pro choice, and the Christian conservatives in their party said ‘we will not work for you at all if you support them.'"

Wilcox says one remarkable aspect of the 2008 presidential campaign has been how Democrats have rediscovered the use of religious language in an attempt to show moderates that members of their party also are religious.

"I think at some point many sort of moderately religious people were thinking, ‘Well, do you (Democrats) have any faith; is there some sort of core anchor to you?'" he says. "And since we don't have a tradition here of say, values for atheists, there's no long tradition of understanding that you do not need to be religious to be moral."

Though Wilcox has developed a distinctive expertise in this field, delving into the workings of the Christian Right wasn't the first thing on his mind.

He found himself without a door ajar into the world of academia in a weak job market after he graduated from college. This led him to work as a statistician with the Federal Election Committee for two years.

But that turned out to be a good choice in the long run.

"I picked up a whole expertise in campaign finance just because I couldn't get a job in academia," he jokes.
Wilcox would later take a one-year visiting professorship at Union College in Schenectady, N.Y. The next year, in 1987, he joined Georgetown as an assistant professor.

Though much of his research has focused on the Christian Right, Wilcox's work spans the political spectrum -- he looks at the impact of interest groups on electioneering, lobbying and policymaking; gender in politics; and campaign finance.

In his 20 years at Georgetown, the government professor has met at least one person from all but nine countries through his own travels and through frequent discussions with international visitor groups brought over by the U.S. State Department. At the state department, he co-teaches a Composure Under Fire course for the entering class of foreign service officers.

"The kinds of questions you get from international visitors, are usually really interesting, and it helps you understand the distinctiveness of your politics," Wilcox says. "We take for granted all kinds of things. We take for granted that candidates will run relatively dishonest ads. Other countries, they might have laws against this…"

In Canada, he notes, politicians tend to stick to spending limits.

"The parties (there) really never try to spend beyond the legal limit because this is the rule. In the U.S. we're always finding ways to go over the limits and around the limits and so forth," he explains.

Wilcox requires his students to read comparisons of countries in respect to elections and policies to give them a broader view of U.S. politics.

"You understand American politics better if you at least think about how we're different," says Wilcox, who has authored, co-authored, edited or co-edited more than 30 books.

Wilcox teaches both undergraduate and graduate courses. He says he enjoys the fresh and interesting perspective of the undergraduates and also likes working with graduate students.

"We're teaching how to be a teacher, right, how to be a professor, how to ask analytic type questions, how to answer them," he says. "So part of the teaching of graduate students is collaborating with them and writing papers with them."

A Mind for Mentoring

In addition to shaping young minds at Georgetown, Wilcox has co-authored several books with current and former students, including "Onward Christian Soldiers: The Christian Right in American Politics" (Third Edition) (Westview Press, 2006) with Carin Robinson (G'10). She and Wilcox are working on a fourth edition, which will be completed after this election cycle.

For Jeremy Mayer (G'96), being under Wilcox's tutelage did more than open the door to publishing. In Wilcox, Mayer says he found a mentor, a friend and, finally, a colleague. The two collaborated on a contribution to "Ross for Boss: The Perot Phenomenon and Beyond" (State University of New York Press, 2001).

"Clyde was an extraordinary adviser during my four years at Georgetown as a Ph.D. student," says Mayer, who now serves as associate professor and director of the public policy master's program at George Mason University. "It was much more than his teaching … I also remember in the last three weeks before my dissertation had to be turned in that some data problems arose. Clyde spent hours rerunning all the data with me, from top to bottom."

His colleagues also say they benefit from Wilcox's wisdom.

Michele Swers, associate professor of American government, says that he's been great for advice in teaching and research.

"(Clyde) has a very sharp mind and is able to draw ideas from a wide variety of research," she says. "At the same time he is very relaxed and always enjoys talking about politics."

Source: Blue & Gray