Six months ago, it seemed like a good bet that religion would be a significant factor in the 2012 presidential election. No one ever thought it would be the biggest issue driving votes, of course—the economy still has a lock on that distinction. But with a Mormon as the Republican nominee, the Catholic church waging a war of words against the incumbent president and his biggest legislative accomplishment, and the heavy representation of conservative white evangelicals in the Tea Party movement, religion was always hovering around the edges of political discussions.

And yet for better or worse—or, I would argue, both—religion has been largely absent throughout the general election campaign. Here are some of my best explanations for why that is:

1. Media hesitancy/confusion about covering Mormonism. By far the development that surprised me the most this year was a non-story. I was sure that the candidacy of a Mormon would be too much for journalists to resist, and that we would be treated to all manner of anthropological treatments of these exotic creatures called Mormons. That can make for some pretty bad journalism and I’ve argued elsewhere that it’s also irrelevant in the context of a political campaign. But that’s never stopped journalists before. I’m kind of shocked that we haven’t seen so much as a blog post about whether President Romney would celebrate Pioneer Day at the White House.

I suspect a number of factors steered members of the media away from looking closely at Romney’s faith. The first is a simple lack of knowledge about Mormonism, its structure, beliefs, practices, and the role of lay leaders. You can’t cover what you don’t know. The second is the fact that Democrats have admirably stayed away from making any issue out of Romney’s faith. And with the exception of Andrew Sullivan, who started making an issue of Romney’s Mormonism in the past few weeks, most journalists have followed this lead of maintaining a hands-off attitude toward Mormonism. Third is the not insignificant fact that the Romney campaign has pushed back hard and swiftly on even vague references to Romney’s “otherness” or questions about whether we really know who he is. The argument they’ve made is actually brilliant: so few Americans know about Mormonism that reporting anything about it will make the faith—and Romney himself—look weird. Therefore, to report about Mormonism is to be biased against Romney.

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