Democratic front-runner Howard Dean is talking a lot about Christianity and religion these days. Or, at least he's talking about something he thinks is Christianity. He says he will have to talk this way to reach southerners. He had better hope they're not listening closely.

Dr. Dean has been telling the press and the public that he now intends to talk about his faith. The announcement caught the media off balance as Dean announced that he would now claim a Christian identity and mention Jesus on the campaign trail. As one might expect, there is a good deal more to this story, and it reveals as much about the American political scene as about Howard Dean.

A former governor of Vermont, Dr. Dean first made his announcement in an interview with the Boston Globe. In the interview, Dean described himself as a committed believer in Jesus Christ and said that he would "include references to Jesus and God in his speeches as he stumps in the South." This came as a shock to the newspaper. Reporter Sarah Schweitzer responded with an understatement: "The move is striking for a man who has steadfastly kept his personal life out of the campaign, rarely offering biographical information, much less his religious beliefs." In reality, Gov. Dean's religious convictions are so private, even he doesn't seem to know what they are.

Howard Dean has run as one of the most secular candidates in the history of American presidential politics. In previous statements, Dean has explained that he does not attend church very often and does not allow his faith to inform his public policy. "My religion doesn't inform my public policy," Dean once explained. Dean also told ABC News commentator George Stephanopoulos that his religious convictions have "nothing" to do with his political career.

In a previous statement Dean simply summarized his personal separation of church and state: "My faith doesn't inform my public policy." Like John F. Kennedy, Dean could have argued that his faith doesn't determine his public policy. But Gov. Dean went far further, arguing that his faith doesn't even inform his public policy.

Dean's interview with the Boston Globe came just days after the appearance of a cover story in The New Republic. In "Howard Dean's Religion Problem," writer Franklin Foer described Dean as "one of the most secular candidates to run for president in modern history." The New Republic, a magazine that eagerly endorsed Al Gore for president in 2000, is clearly worried that Howard Dean's secularism makes him virtually unelectable.

The New Republic article sited a 2000 poll undertaken by the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press which found that seventy percent of Americans want their president to be a "person of faith." As that poll made clear, this preference is a nation-wide reality and is enough to ensure that no secular candidate can win the South or the Midwest. As Foer concluded, "in the last five presidential elections, the candidate who more aggressively conveyed his religiosity (whether honestly or not so honestly) won." Foer draws the obvious conclusion for the 2004 election: "Seen in this light, a popular contest between Dean's secularism and George W. Bush's heartfelt faith could be, well, no contest. And the same, in turn, could be true of the election."