Some experts predict Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney’s speech on Thursday addressing his Mormon faith will not likely allay suspicions, but rather open the floodgate for more questions.
In his brief 20-minute speech, Romney only mentioned the word “Mormon” once, choosing instead to replace the term with “my church”, “my faith”, and “my religion”, according to The Associated Press.
Romney kept the focus on affirming the separation of church and state by declaring that if elected president, he would “serve no one religion, no one group, no one cause and no one interest”.
“Let me assure you that no authorities of my church, or of any other church for that matter, will ever exert influence on presidential decisions,” Romney said at the George Bush Presidential Library and Museum in College Station, Texas.
“Their authority is theirs, within the province of church affairs, and it ends where the affairs of the nation begin.”
Yet at the same time, he indicated he would not distance himself from his religion.
“I believe in my Mormon faith and I endeavor to live by it. My faith is the faith of my fathers – I will be true to them and to my beliefs,” he said, adding that if his faith hurts his candidacy, “so be it”, according to CNN.
Romney’s speech takes place as a growing number of evangelical Christians begin to coalesce behind presidential rival Mike Huckabee, a former Southern Baptist preacher who runs on a conservative Christian platform.
Romney’s speech is widely thought to be in response to Huckabee’s rise in polls last week that found him in dead heat or even ahead of the former Massachusetts governor in Iowa, which holds presidential caucuses on 3 January 2008.
Additionally, Thursday’s speech is also thought to be an attempt to counter criticisms against his record of flip-flopping on such issues as abortion and gay rights.
“The Romney strategy with the speech appeared to be to try to kill two birds with one stone – to placate voters who are apprehensive about him as a Mormon or as a flip-flopper,” said Costas Panagopoulos, a political scientist at Fordham University, to AP.
