THE NOTE: Mitt's Mormon Gamble

Dec. 3, 2007 -- Six questions we trust will be answered this week:

1. Is Mormonism a religion or a cult?

2. What does that make Oprah-ism?

3. If this is the "fun part,"what part of the 30-point leads wasn't fun for Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton?

4. Which endorsement matters more: that of a crusty Republican publisher in New Hampshire, or that of a freshman Democratic House member in Iowa?

5. Will former governor Mike Huckabee's dimples still be showing when he gets a full week of media scrutiny? (And is that why Jesus never ran for office?)

6. Which former Iowa front-runner's change in tactics -- Mitt Romney or Hillary Clinton -- will make a difference in the final month before the caucuses?

Moving in the wrong direction in Iowa polls, both Romney and Clinton "rolled out new campaign tactics Sunday in an aggressive push to regain lost momentum," Peter Nicholas and Peter Wallsten write in the Los Angeles Times.

"Both Romney and Clinton would be shaken by a loss in this crucial state. Clinton has cast herself as the inevitable nominee, and a defeat here would shatter perceptions that she can't be stopped. Romney has spent heavily on campaign ads in Iowa."

Poor Romney (certainly not literally). So he does what the PowerPoint presentations told him to do -- he combs his (ample) hair, shows off that loving (and lovely) family, signs the checks, attacks Rudy Giuliani -- and what does he get for the $7 million-plus he's dropped in Iowa? A nice, unobstructed view of Mike Huckabee's (much diminished) backside.

How does he respond? By playing the card he's been holding onto all these months. He's calling The Speech -- scheduled for Thursday morning in College Station, Texas -- "Faith in America," but it may as well be called "Have Faith in Mitt," or maybe just "Mormonism Isn't Weird."

Romney's religion remains foreign (even enough to be a deal-breaker) to a large slice of the Republican electorate, which is what makes this speech an option, if not a necessity. He will command the national press attention on Thursday and in the days leading up to the speech -- one benefit of four days' advance notice.

It will be "the most anticipated speech of his presidential campaign," and the stakes will be huge for the former governor, ABC's John Berman reports.

Aides acknowledge that the "risk is that we focus on the Mormon faith, as opposed to focusing on a candidate who's faith is an important part of who he is." Says a Romney aide: "We will all remember this."

And it's not going to be an easy speech for Romney to deliver. "If he says something about Mormonism as his actual religion, it's not going to please evangelicals too much," Boston College's Alan Wolfe tells Michael Levenson of The Boston Globe.

"But if he gives the kind of Jesus-is-my-personal-savior speech, evangelicals won't buy it and he's going to alienate his own Mormon friends."

"If Romney wants to grab those crucial Evangelical votes in Iowa and elsewhere, he will earn their respect and come across as honest and authentic if he acknowledges the differences between the two religions," writes the Christian Broadcasting Network's David Brody.

"Evangelicals would trust him more, appreciate him more and respect him more if he came clean about the differences."

This is a defensive move, not an offensive one, which makes for the most uncomfortable of settings as Romney, R-Mass., seeks to explain his faith to the voters of Iowa and beyond.

The speech has been on the shelf so long that the Romney campaign now has three Big Problems, not two: his religion, his flip-flops, and Mike Huckabee -- whose rise is tied closely to those first two items.

Huckabee is finally capitalizing on the surge of interest in his candidacy. Romney's announcement Sunday that The Speech is forthcoming came on the very day that the Des Moines Register poll had Huckabee atop the GOP field in Iowa.

It's Huckabee 29, Romney 24, Giuliani 13.

"The former Arkansas governor is making the most of a low-budget campaign by tapping into the support of Iowa's social conservatives," the Register's Jonathan Roos writes.

It's "the first time in this campaign that a candidate has emerged from the second tier of contenders to challenge the front-runners," Adam Nagourney writes in The New York Times.

"Mr. Huckabee's gains are powered by support he has among Christian conservatives, who have had friction with Mormons. They appear to be responding to his message that he is the true social conservative in the race despite criticism that as governor he raised taxes and was not tough enough on illegal immigrants."

It will inevitably be called Romney's "JFK" speech -- and in case reporters need more historical ties between the last Bay Stater to reach the White House and the current aspirant, Romney's choice of the George H. W. Bush Presidential Library at Texas A&M puts him within easy driving distance of Houston, where Democratic nominee John F. Kennedy gave his speech in September 1960.

But the comparisons are imprecise. ABC's Jake Tapper: "If Kennedy's experience is any guide, one speech will not put the issue to rest. Historical amnesia aside, Kennedy's speech in Houston was not his first big public attempt to address and end discussion of the issue of his faith -- far from it. Nor was not the end of the matter, either."

Tapper adds that "for Romney, there are pitfalls that Kennedy did not have. The Catholic vote in the U.S. was and is a significant voting bloc," while Mormons represent about 2 percent of the population.

The timing means Romney has lost the clear shot he might have once had, if he delivered the speech as the far-and-away frontrunner in Iowa and New Hampshire. The American Spectator's Jennifer Rubin recalls that it was just Nov. 12 when Romney said there was "no particular urgency [to deliver The Speech] because I'm making progress in the states where I'm campaigning."

The only thing that's changed since then is Huckabee's emergence: "The Speech gives a shot to deflect the press from the 'Romney collapse/Huckabee surge' storyline," Rubin writes. "However, The Speech seems a huge gamble-- risking stirring up the hornet's nest of concern and sending commentators into a new round of discussion of whether Evangelicals will support a Mormon."