Romney decides to give the Mormon speech after all

Mitt Romney's campaign has been struggling for months with the Mormon question. In a Republican primary, how much will voters care about Romney's religion? This is especially important given Romney's courting of social conservatives and his belief that he can prevail in South Carolina.

Mormonism has been coming up for months as an issue -- voters are asking about it at campaign stops, and many magazines are running stories about Romney's connection to his faith. In response, many have been encouraging Romney to do a "JFK" speech, talking about his connection to his faith and how it would influence his leadership and presidency. The campaign has been resisting this for a long time but reversed course yesterday, announcing Romney would speak this Thursday:

This speech is an opportunity for Governor Romney to share his views on religious liberty, the grand tradition religious tolerance has played in the progress of our nation and how the governor’s own faith would inform his Presidency if he were elected.
Governor Romney understands that faith is an important issue to many Americans, and he personally feels this moment is the right moment for him to share his views with the nation.

Two questions spring to mind:

(1) Why now?

Romney has been leading in Iowa for months, but Mike Huckabee's surge in the past 2 weeks has put him in a very precarious position. Romney would be very unlikely to win the nomination if he lost in Iowa, and he knows he has to fight Huckabee who is strongest among social conservatives, the portion of the base that is most likely to be uncomfortable with Romney's religion. There is no question that the sudden reversal and decision to give this speech is linked to Huckabee's rise in Iowa.

Note that the campaign statement also said "Governor Romney personally made the decision to deliver this speech sometime last week," implying that the decision was made before the first polls showed Huckabee beating Romney. This is not a sign of panic is what the campaign is saying. We probably shouldn't believe them.

(2) What effect might this have?

If Romney will make this speech, you can be sure the campaign sees the need for it and thinks that the Mormon issue is emerging as a major threat to Romney's nomination. Perhaps they also have indications that rival campaigns are preparing to use this against Romney in smear campaigns in Iowa or South Carolina. The question is whether those who are uncomfortable with Romney's faith might be made more comfortable -- and whether this could succeed at immunizing Romney against attacks.

It will be very hard to tell the exact effort of Romney's speech. Voters have been reluctant to say whether they object to Mormonism in the first place, so their reaction will be hard to assess. My sense is that Romney faces a big challenge:

JFK's speech was about how religion would not feature in public life, and that voters should not worry. Romney can obviously not make a similar argument -- he is running in a GOP primary, after all. His argument will be about putting religion back in the public life, but reassure voters that his message is consistent with Christian ideals, and the faith he will inject in the presidency will be consistent with Christian faith. How can he do that without opening a debate about the differences between Mormonism and Christianity? We'll have to wait for Thursday to find out.