The Role of Religion in Nomination

The brewing scandal about the White House's use of HM's religion and religious convictions reveals how important personal life, and especially religious aspects thereof, have become in the nomination process. Whats particularly disturbing to me is how narrow this administration's concept of the 'religious right' seems to be. I.e., the White House contacts Dobson to reassure the religious right that Harriet Miers is one of theirs precisely because she belongs to a conservative Evangelical church. Note the contrast with the Robert's nomination where JR himself shied away from answering questions about his personal faith and the White House didn't seem to care much about highlighting JR's Catholicism. Was the religious right that much more sure of JR's conservative credentials than they are of HM's? Were his other more professional credentials so strong that they eclipsed the religion issue? Or is the religious right, despite 'holy' alliances with Catholics on aboration and gay marriage, really just an evangelical movement?

One other interesting piece from today's WaPo: Tina Brown writes an interesting column describing how the fact that women haven't ralied behind HM reveals just how far woman have come and ends up lauding praise on Margaret Thatcher.