Using religion

In a recent op-ed, Paul Waldman makes interesting observations about the presidential candidates’ religious stands — or lack thereof. Here are a few choice quotations:

• Nearly all of the major contenders want to have it both ways on religion: They want credit from religious voters for having a strong faith, but they don't want to talk about what they actually believe.

• Listen to candidates talk about religion  and they seem to be following two rules:

  1) Profess that nothing is more important to you than your religion.

  2) Be as vague as possible about your religion.

• Candidates who tell us how important their faith is to them are hoping that religious Americans will come away with warm feelings about them. But if they aren't willing to discuss just what that faith entails, they're saying they want people to vote for them because of their religion, but they don't want anyone to vote against them because of their religion.