I'm perplexed. Everyone is breathlessly awaiting Romney's speech this morning as if it's going to change everything. Michael Luo of the New York Times writes that Romney will "confront suspicions about his Mormon faith" today. The Washington Post headlines its story, "Romney Aims to Prove His Christianity."

We didn't need to see excerpts of the speech to know that neither of these things is going to happen. Romney is going to stand up in a very presidential setting and talk about religious freedom and tolerance, and he's also going to argue that faith informs his character. That's it.

But that's really nothing more than he's said throughout the entire campaign, so aside from the great photo ops and the tons of free media this speech will generate for the next three days, I'm not sure how what Romney says this morning is going to change anything at all.

It appears, then, that there is a bit of an expectation gap regarding Romney's speech: the press - and presumably Republican base voters as well - are expecting one thing, and Romney is set to deliver something else. That doesn't mean the speech won't be well received, but it increases the likelihood that it won't have the effect the Romney camp is hoping for or change the dynamics of the race in a significant way.

We'll have to wait and see. But in pure political terms, it may be that the best thing about Romney's speech is that it pushes the story about his illegal immigrant lawn mowers off the radar screen.