Do we have any reason to be concerned because presidential candidate Mike Huckabee describes himself, on occasion, as a “Christian leader”? Or because Mitt Romney felt compelled to explain both that his religious beliefs are consistent with the values and aspirations of all Americans, and that, as a man of faith, he can be trusted to lead well?

Personally, I think “we” have reason to be concerned on both fronts. While Lawler proceeds to analyze the question raised with respect to Huckabee’s self-description (which is a question that remains relevant–and perhaps is even magnified–because of Obama’s own religious appeals), he says nothing more about the quite different “concern” arising out of the Romney campaign, or rather, as a reaction to the Romney campaign and his response to that reaction. It would be interesting to know how Prof. Lawler would see that within his view of Madison’s view of religious appeals and, particularly, the likely inevitability of such appeals “aimed at rousing up some majority against some minority or other.”