Romney explained he wasn't anxious about using the word "Mormon" many times. "This was not a Mormon speech," he explained, "and I didn't want to make it a Mormon speech."
The former Republican governor said there are a number of elected officials who happen to be Mormon.
Senate Majority LeaderHarry Reid "is a member of our church," Romney said, "and he is probably the leading Democrat in the entire nation right now."
"I am very proud of the Mormon Church," Romney told Gibson, "I am proud of the fact that my forefathers helped to found the American West; that we have fought for the vision of religious tolerance; that we have achieved it; and that someone like me can run for president."
In an interview on NBC's "Today" show before the speech, former Gov. Mike Huckabee of Arkansas, who has risen in the polls in Iowa but not in New Hampshire to challenge Romney, was asked whether his rival's Mormon faith would have any impact on whether he would make a good president.
"None whatsoever," Huckabee said. "I think it's a matter of what his views are, whether they're consistent, whether they're authentic, just like mine are. It has nothing to do with what faith a person has. It's whether or not that person's life is consistent with how he lives it."
Other rivals disagreed.
On his campaign bus Thursday night, Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., suggested Huckabee's recent success in Iowa led Romney to make the speech.
"He [Huckabee] knows there's a strong voting bloc in Iowa that call themselves 'Christian conservatives,'" McCain said. "He's always been trying to appeal to them. I saw some of his mailers, stuff out there. I think that Huckabee's rise in the polls has clearly had an impact on a lot of people's strategic thinking."
Not so, Romney told ABC News.
"I have been through a couple of surges now. First was the McCain surge, then the Giuliani surge, and then the Fred Thompson surge, and now it's the Mike Huckabee surge. And in the past, what's happened is, when the surge occurs, people look more closely at the record of the vision of the person running … and inevitably the surge kinda deflates. I think you will see the same thing here. I sure hope so."
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