Religious politicians: kooks or not?

Rod Dreher asks:

I agree that it was stupid that Romney should have had to have given that speech, but American political culture really left him little choice. As silly as that may seem — as silly as it is — is Britain really better off? This, from Jeff Jacoby’s column on Romney today:

It was on Sunday that the Romney campaign announced the forthcoming speech, saying the candidate would discuss how his “own faith would inform his presidency if he were elected.” On the same day in Britain, as it happened, the BBC broadcast an interview with former Prime Minister Tony Blair, who said that his Christian faith had been “hugely important” to him during his 10 years in power – but that he had felt constrained to keep it a secret for fear of being thought a crackpot. “It’s difficult to talk about religious faith in our political system,” Blair said.