THE NOTE: The Speech

Dec. 6, 2007 -- Until or unless Hillary Clinton decides to give her Monica speech, this will be The Speech -- the kind of nationally covered, doubly capitalized, all-eyes-on-one-candidate address that's almost always reserved for presidents and major-party nominees.

And the pre-speech buildup means we know some of what we can expect from this giant national teachable moment even before former governor Mitt Romney, R-Mass., takes the stage in College Station, Texas, at 10:30 am ET Thursday (after being introduced by former President George H. W. Bush -- try unpacking that symbolism).

1. This will be called Mitt's "Mormon speech" even if it barely touches on his Mormon faith (and will be criticized for that fact).

2. This will be called Mitt's "JFK speech" even though it won't match (and won't try to match) Kennedy's eloquence (and will be criticized for that fact, too).

3. No voters who have decided they won't vote for a Mormon will change their minds Thursday morning.

4. By waiting until this moment to deliver this address, The Speech will be cast as a defensive maneuver (hello, Mike Huckabee).

5. Since The Speech will anger many someones -- evangelicals, fellow Mormons, atheists, Catholics, Jews, maybe all of the above -- the single biggest thing Romney can accomplish is to appear as if he's speaking from the heart.

It won't answer all the questions facing Romney -- and, per excerpts provided by his campaign, he will not dive into the elements that set his religion apart, saying that doing so would "enable the very religious test the founders prohibited in the Constitution."

But it's a fascinating address, with a celebration of "our nation's symphony of faith," and the "common creed of moral convictions." And this quote that's destined to be whittled into the most sound bites (listen for echoes, at least, of JFK):

"When I place my hand on the Bible and take the oath of office, that oath becomes my highest promise to God. If I am fortunate to become your president, I will serve no one religion, no one group, no one cause, and no one interest. A President must serve only the common cause of the people of the United States."

He includes a call to arms for voters of all faiths: "In recent years, the notion of the separation of church and state has been taken by some well beyond its original meaning.

They seek to remove from the public domain any acknowledgment of God. Religion is seen as merely a private affair with no place in public life. It is as if they are intent on establishing a new religion in America -- the religion of secularism. They are wrong."

And this sure applause line: "Any believer in religious freedom, any person who has knelt in prayer to the Almighty, has a friend and ally in me. And so it is for hundreds of millions of our countrymen: we do not insist on a single strain of religion -- rather, we welcome our nation's symphony of faith."

Watch Romney's speech live at 10:30 am ET by clicking here.

On first glance, the speech appears to meet the expectations set by Newsweek's Jon Meacham, whose book Romney had been reading in preparing for Thursday's speech.

"He should say clearly in his speech that he will not allow his church to dictate to him on public matters," Meacham writes. "Beyond that, he should talk about how religion has shaped us without strangling us, and that the Founders envisioned a nation in which religion would be one factor among many in the life of the country."

Yet expectations are such that this is still pretty close to a no-win situation for the former governor, who has tried to avoid talking theology on the trail for precisely that reason.

This is the context that makes things so difficult: "Some scholars and evangelical Christians, who make up a crucial voting bloc in the Republican Party and consider Mormonism to be heretical, say that many voters would like to hear more from Mr. Romney about exactly what he believes," Michael Luo writes in The New York Times.

That's exactly what he's not doing, and here, in part, is why: "To claim his religion doesn't matter and is a private concern flies in the face of the conservative Christian view. If he suggests that Mormonism is basically like Christianity, Romney could offend Christians even more," Robert Novak and Timothy P. Carney write in the Evans-Novak Political Report.

But Novak and Carney see an opening, if only a slight one: "This could be an opportunity for Romney to tap into a vein of resentment and fear that has been largely ignored by much of the Republican establishment and the mainstream media: Conservative Christians being forced by government to violate their consciences."

ABC's John Berman reports that the 20-minute speech will be attended by between 300 and 400 invited guests, and that a moment of silence will commemorate the victims of the Omaha mall shooting. And Romney staffers are making no efforts at all to downplay this. "They all say, 'we understand the importance of the moment,' " Berman reports.

"Romney's aides said the audience will include James Bopp Jr., a prominent antiabortion activist who is an adviser to Romney, and Richard Land, the president of the Southern Baptist Convention's Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission," The Boston Globe's Michael Levenson reports.

Land told ABC's Diane Sawyer on "Good Morning America" on Thursday that he does not consider Mormons to be Christians, but said he has high hopes for the speech he's long been urging Romney to deliver.

"I think he'll change some minds," Land said. "The governor needs to give a speech that can close this deal for many, many, many people."