gerard alexander is Associate Professor of Politics at the University of Virginia. He is author of The Sources of Democratic Consolidation. He is currently working on a book about race and modern conservative politics. galexander@virginia.edu

william crafton is Senior Health Policy Analyst at the U.S. Government Accountability Office. He received his Ph.D. in History from Cambridge University, where he studied welfare reform in the 1970s and 1980s. He also received an M.A. in Social Service Administration from the University of Chicago. The views in this article are the author’s alone and do not reflect those of the Government Accountability Office. wacrafton@gmail.com

david farber is Professor of History at Temple University. His research interests include the recent history of American political culture, U.S. social change movements, racial justice politics, business and society, and the political capacity of civil society. He is the author of a number of monographs, including The Rise and Fall of Modern American Conservatism (Princeton University Press, 2010). dfarber@temple.edu

richard j. meagher is Assistant Professor of Political Science at Randolph-Macon College in Ashland, Virginia. He has written and lectured widely on the history of the American Right. He is currently working on two research projects: a book about the conservative movement, and a historical look at atheism in American politics. richardmeagher@rmc.edu

kathryn olmsted is Professor of History at the University of California, Davis. She is the author of Real Enemies: Conspiracy Theories and American Democracy, World War I to 9/11 (Oxford, 2009); Red Spy Queen: A Biography of Elizabeth Bentley (North Carolina, 2002); and Challenging the Secret Government: The Post-Watergate Investigations of the CIA and FBI (North Carolina, 1996). ksolmsted@ucdavis.edu

jon a. shields is Associate Professor of Government at Claremont McKenna College and author of The Democratic Virtues of the Christian Right (Princeton University Press, 2009). He is currently working with Joshua Dunn on a book on conservative professors. jon.shields@cmc.edu