Mitt Romney's Mormon Speech

 Just last week, Mitt Romney was asked at a town hall meeting whether he planned to give a speech to "correct some of the misinformation" regarding his Mormon faith.  His short answer was ,"no."--that the American people would choose the best candidate to "get the country going again."  Judging from the polls, however, he might want to think again.

Romney is currently trailing Herman Cain, and there's reason for the Romney campaign to be deeply concerned.  Many Republicans don't trust him.  They see him as a moderate who is taking conservative positions for purely political reasons.  And nothing he has done so far as calmed their fears.  Think about it: he's been campaigning for this spot for basically four years, and he can't get more than about 25% support in any poll.

On top of his image as a flip-flopper on abortion rights and gay marriage, and his "Romney care," which served as a blueprint for the Affordable Care Act, many Republicans are still very uneasy about Romney's faith.  As this recent Gallup poll shows, almost 20 percent of Republicans will not vote for a Mormon.  That might not seem much, but it's a massive amount in a primary race, where several candidates are vying for the top spot.

Much of this hesitation comes from the party's strong evangelical wing, many of whom reject equating Mormonism with Christianity.  This whole notion became front and center earlier this month when a Baptist pastor from Dallas called Mormonism a cult on national TV.  Soon after, the issue was  brought up in one of the debates.  The candidates did a masterful job of dodging the issue, with all saying something along the lines of, "a candidate's faith doesn't matter--but it really does."  On a side note, ask Barack Obama how much a candidate's faith matters.

So, what's Mitt to do?  He needs to take a lesson from a Democrat (the horror!), and make a speech to calm the fears of the Republican electorate regarding  his faith.  In 1960, with Election Day just two months away, JFK delivered an incredibly effective speech to protestant ministers explaining that he would not in any way be indebted to the Vatican when making decisions regarding the well being of the country.  Up until then, Kennedy's Catholic faith had been a major issue (even among some Democrats).

In some ways, Romney has an even harder uphill battle than Kennedy had.  Catholicism didn't have the mysticism surrounding it that Mormonism does today.  That alone makes Romney's speech even more of a necessity.  And he's absolutely got nothing to lose.  Giving a speech detailing the similarities between his faith and evangelical Christianity will do a lot of good, and should help his poll numbers.