Mitt's 'JFK speech' called 'wild gamble'

Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney's decision to give a speech this week confronting questions about his Mormon faith is being seen as a gamble that may not be a win with either supporters or opponents.

The so-called "JFK speech" is set to be delivered by Romney on Thursday, less than a month before Iowa Republicans and Democrats will cast the first votes in the 2008 presidential race in party caucuses.

The site of the speech is the George Bush Presidential Library in College Station, Texas, and although the Romney campaign has said the choice of location shouldn't be seen as an endorsement, former President George H.W. Bush himself will introduce Romney.

Neither Bush nor his son, President Bush, have endorsed a candidate in the wide-open race for the GOP nomination. The introduction by a past president will no doubt be a boost to Romney's campaign, which is beginning to falter in Iowa.

The speech, though, could either help — or hurt — Romney, the former leader of the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City and the clear choice for president among Utah voters according to recent polls.

Just what Romney will say is being kept under wraps by his campaign. It is expected to be modeled after one delivered by then-candidate John F. Kennedy to Baptist leaders in Houston in 1960 to ease concerns about a Catholic president.

Romney made an effort Monday to downplay that comparison, however, telling supporters in New Hampshire that "JFK really did give the definitive speech on politics and religion" and his would not be "a repeat or an update."

Instead, according to the Boston Globe, Romney said he wants to focus on his concern that "faith has disappeared in many respects from the public square. I want to make sure we maintain our religious heritage in this country."

Romney said the speech, which his campaign said he wrote himself in Boca Raton, Fla., a day after last week's Republican CNN-YouTube debate, would "answer some questions relating to how my own faith would inform my presidency," ABC News reported.

The stakes are high. After holding the lead in must-win Iowa for months, Romney now trails former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, a Baptist minister popular with the same evangelical Christian voters suspicious of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Political pundits are already second-guessing Romney's decision to talk about "Faith in America," noting even the candidate's closest advisers have long been divided over whether the speech will just end up raising more questions about Mormonism.