There’s an interesting article in the LA Times about religion and presidential campaigns.

Maybe the economy is a political black hole, sucking every other issue into an impossibly dense void.

Maybe Barack Obama and Mitt Romney are just private, cautious men by nature.

For whatever reason, neither President Obama nor his Republican challenger is talking much about religion these days — neither about his own faith nor that of his opponent, or the social issues that motivate religious voters.

It is a striking departure from the faith-based overtures heard in this year’s Republican primary and in some past presidential campaigns, and it serves to mask a central aspect of each man’s life story, in which faith plays an important role. But analysts on both sides of the political spectrum say religion is perceived as a no-win subject by both campaigns, and it is not likely to play a prominent role in the 2012 election.

Romney can’t afford to have any political discussion get into Mormon theology and doctrine, since then people would want to know if he really believes that a man in up state New York nearly 200 years ago translated ancient golden tablets using the help of some magic rocks, from an ancient dead language to the form of English that had been standard about 200 years before his time. Obama also can’t afford to have discussion move to his faith, because we all know that he’s an atheist-Muslim-Black liberation Christian with a radical secular agenda that includes increasing funding to Faith Based Initiatives and eating babies.

With any luck, this election could start to shift politics back away from the pious pissing contest it’s become.