As the campaign cycle gears up, like clockwork, if you are a Mormon GOP politician on the national stage, the media can’t stop focusing on your religion. And with two LDS candidates, news stories have been eager to set up a Mormon primary showdown.

Hoping to forgo a replay of 2008, both Jon Huntsman and Mitt Romney are taking the initiative to avoid the endless media pondering of the “Mormon question” (which is so last decade).

Today, almost as if they both said “enough!” (or maybe they coordinated it), Huntsman and Romney in their own way did their best of killing that media narrative:

• Jon Huntsman directly takes on the Mormon Question by questioning his own membership in the LDS Church as describing it as “tough to define.” (Certainly his right but stupid question: why now as he eyes national office and not when he was governor of Utah?)

• Mitt Romney probably made any conservative not care if he was a Satanist by doing a pretty good job of unapologetically defending RomneyCare, and by extension doing a better job of explaining Obamacare better than then President ever could. I’m not sure how that works at winning the GOP nomination (especially considering how poorly Massachusetts healthcare is faring).

Although I’m disappointed in both of these developments, it would be nice if the media would focus on the substance of these two candidates rather than constantly suggesting a Mormon phantom menace lurks behind these two campaigns. But I know that’s too much to hope for.