The speech is seen as "a wildly unpredictable gamble ... potentially at war with the campaign's longtime precept that it is not a winning strategy for Romney to be identified primarily as the Mormon candidate in a Republican race dominated by Christian voters," the online publication, Politico, said Monday.

"It's probably the epitome of a high-stakes moment in a campaign," said Kirk Jowers, head of the University of Utah's Hinckley Institute of Politics and a Romney supporter. "He has the unenviable position of trying to strike the right balance."

And that may not entirely please anyone, especially those who are looking for Romney to right the wrong information about the church that's surfaced during the campaign, such as the Rev. Al Sharpton's suggestion last spring that Romney and Mormons don't believe in God.

"I'm sure there will be some that see this as a 'golden moment' for the church," Jowers said. "Romney needs to stay focused on his purpose for the speech, and that is very different than what some members of the LDS Church want out of it."

The LDS Church had little to say about the speech. "We don't feel it appropriate to make any comment before Gov. Romney gives his speech on Thursday but will be watching with interest," church spokesman Scott Trotter said.

Jowers suggested there will be little discussion about Mormon belViefs. "I tend to doubt he will spend much if any time on any of the specific theological tenants or doctrines, including the misunderstood ones such as polygamy," he said.

That's just fine with the Rev. C. Welton Gaddy, head of the Interfaith Alliance, based in Washington, D.C. Gaddy told the Deseret Morning News Monday the focus of the speech needs to be on the separation of church and state.

"If, as a true Mormon, he wants to talk about misperceptions or misunderstandings of his faith, he ought to do that as Mitt Romney the Mormon, not as Mitt Romney the candidate," Gaddy said.

Unlike others, Gaddy said Romney has nothing to lose by giving the speech.

"He has frankly tried to have it both ways up to now. When people have criticized him for being Mormon, he has asked that he not be judged on the basis of religion," Gaddy said, while at the same time courting the religious right by emphasizing their shared beliefs.

Earlier this year, Gaddy, a Baptist minister and the host of a program on the liberal "Air America" radio network, urged Romney to give a speech making it clear he would "function as the president of the United States and not as a Mormon" if elected.

Romney's campaign has portrayed his decision to give the speech despite the split among his advisers as demonstrating he's in control. But even his supporters acknowledge he may have waited too long.

"In retrospect, the ideal time would have been a few months ago. This is the last possible moment to do it," Jowers said. Why now, then? "I think he just doesn't want any regrets at the end of this campaign."

Romney, though, had little choice with Huckabee's surge in the polls thanks, in part, to identifying himself as the evangelical Christian candidate. "He has to deal with this head-on," said Christian Grose, a political science professor at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tenn.

"In some ways, the questions are really unfair. They're not asking a number of other candidates whether their religion is going to hurt them," Grose said. "Romney's people might want to be asking when Huckabee is going to be giving the Baptist speech."

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