US presidential hopeful to gamble votes with Mormon speech

WASHINGTON - US presidential candidate Mitt Romney will cross the line of no return this week when he delivers a much anticipated speech on his Mormon faith and how it will affect his role as president if elected.

The issue of Romney's Mormon faith has dogged his campaign since the beginning, but has lately intensified as former presidential underdog Mike Huckabee seizes evangelical voters in Iowa with his conservative Christian platform.

Huckabee for the first time took the lead in a Des Moines Register newspaper poll Sunday, beating Romney, who has long been the favorite Republican candidate in the hawkeye state. The poll showed Huckabee overtaking Romney by 29 to 24 percent in Iowa, according to Agence France-Presse.

Romney's campaign, however, dismissed heavy speculation that its candidate's decision to speak about his faith is somehow related to Huckabee's surge in Iowa. Instead, the campaign said the poll had "zero" influence on his decision to give the speech, according to The Politico.

Campaign spokesman Kevin Madden said Romney's speech on Thursday will be an opportunity for the presidential hopeful to speak about religious liberty, religious tolerance and how his faith will influence his presidency.

"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," said campaign spokesman Madden, in a statement.

Madden noted that Romney personally made the decision to deliver the speech "sometime last week", overturning the candidate's dismissal in mid-November on the prospect of a speech on his Mormon faith.

While Romney's speech on Mormonism has long been anticipated, it is not without dangers.

"The risk is that it brings to the fore the way Mormonism diverges from conventional Christianity, and it will make people ask the question, 'Do I really want to vote for someone who believes that conventional Christian churches are 'apostate'?" Mathew Schmalz, a religious studies professor at the College of the Holy Cross, told The Associated Press.

Many Christians regard the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, the formal name of the Mormon church, as a cult for rewriting the Bible and for its views on its founder Joseph Smith and Jesus Christ among other biblical figures.

A poll last month by AP and Yahoo showed half of those surveyed had expressed discomfort with voting for a Mormon presidential candidate, including 20 per cent who said it would make them very uncomfortable.

Despite the potential risks involved with speaking out on the Mormon faith, some experts say it is a step Romney must take.

"It's something Romney has got to deal with," said Dennis Goldford, a political science professor at Drake University in Iowa, to AP. "He's tried to deal with it by underplaying it and not mentioning it, but the emergence of Huckabee - who has defined himself in terms of his religious background - has forced Romney's hand."

Romney said Monday that his speech will not focus on the tenets of Mormonism, but rather be a discussion on openness to religion, according to AP. He also plans to share the stage with his wife and sons to support the idea that he holds the same values as most Americans, especially evangelical Christians.

Romney's speech, "Faith in America", will take place Thursday, December 6 at the George H W Bush Presidential Library in College Station, Texas.