ty ideologues to the degree that it disturbed Buckley and his supporters. How times have changed. According to one Randian blogger, not a Tea Party member, '''I do believe God created the universe. I think she's wrong,''' and in reply to Weiss's question about the Tea Party, the same blogger said, ''What's not to like?''86 In Weiss's opinion, the bridge between the Randian Objectivists and the Christian right "was simple: politely disagree with Rand's beliefs that are repulsive to devout Christians."87 australasian journal of american studies116 That many continue to believe in God while espousing Rand's rhetoric puzzles Weiss. He believes that "The Tea Party was a coalition of people of various political persuasions-from conservatives to libertarians to people tilting in the Randian direction-coalescing over laissez-faire capitalism and limited government."88 In the light of his interviewees counterbalancing their support for Rand's thought with their deeply held religious views, the line in the Tea Party movement between the transactional and other (competing) conceptions (classical liberal and right wing Christian) of the individual blurs. That the Objectivist transactional conception has the most disciplined and articulate adherents suggests that it will ultimately prevail over the other conservative conceptions of the individual. More than a struggle for America's soul, the mainstreaming of Ayn Rand's radical capitalist ideology is thus a struggle for the soul of modernity. In my opinion, Sco! McConnell's and Gary Weiss's oral histories of Ayn Rand and her radical capitalist ideology, Objectivism, demonstrate the degree to which they have lost their fringe crackpot identities and have acquired a degree of respectability in mainstream democratic politics. McConnell's collection highlights her extensive impact on popular culture during her lifetime whereas Weiss's highlights the extent to which her followers are now reaching out to other conservatives and beyond to the mainstream community. They no longer mere