Rick Santorum's presidential campaign appears to have released a new video that subliminally links President Barack Obama with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

M. Alex Johnson is a reporter for msnbc.com. Follow him on Twitter and Facebook.

The video, titled "Obamaville," is a 65-second-long production that presents bleak images of an America in dire economic and social straits, interspersed with scenes of international unrest. Prominent among those is a segment showing images of protests and violence in Iran, featuring pictures of Ahmadinejad. It doesn't include the mandatory "I'm Rick Santorum and I approved this message" tagline that would be necessary if it were intended to air on television.

The video was posted Friday on the Santorum campaign's YouTube page, where it was marked as "unlisted," meaning you can't access it without a special link. But you should still be able to see it on a Twitter account identified as belonging to Michael Biundo, Santorum's campaign manager.

Biundo didn't respond to a request for comment Friday night.

The ad also was published by National Review Online, which touted it as an exclusive "first look at Rick Santorum's latest ad."

At the 40-second mark, an image of Ahmadinejad is shown on a small TV screen. For less than a half-second, the picture flashes to a similarly framed picture of Obama before returning to the Iranian dictator.

At full speed, it looks like a tiny video glitch or small lightning strike, but if you slow down the video, the image of Obama is clear in individual frames:

Reached by NBC News on Friday night, Hogan Gidley, a Santorum spokesman, said it is "absurd" to think the ad is likening Obama to Ahmadinejad.

"If Ahmadinejad gets a nuclear weapon, then we're obviously going to deal with the fallout and coverage of that," Gidley said. "All we're going to be seeing is images of him and the president. We were trying to illustrate that."

And Politico reported that John Brabender, the media consultant who made the video, also denied there was an attempt to conflate Obama and Ahmadinejad. Brabender told Politico that the video is part of an eight-part web series that will run on the Santorum website in two weeks focusing on specific Obama policies.

The ad in some ways is reminiscent of one produced by the Republican National Committee for George W. Bush in 2000, in which the word "RATS" briefly appeared on the screen in a reference to Al Gore's health care proposals before resolving into the word "BUREAUCRATS" at the 25-second mark.

Here are the frames in question:

YouTube.com

That ad was pulled after Democrats complained that it was a subliminal insult about Gore, a charge that the RNC and the Bush campaign denied.

NBC News' Andrew Rafferty contributed to this report.

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Ted S. Warren / AP

Mitt Romney, right, bows his head in prayer as he stands on stage with local elected officials during a campaign rally on Feb. 3 in Elko, Nev. Nearly six in 10 Republican and Republican-leaning voters who favor Romney for the GOP presidential nomination say churches should keep out of political matters.

In an election campaign season in which issues such as birth control and gay marriage have made headlines, a growing number of Americans think political leaders are talking too much religion, according to a new national survey.

The survey released Wednesday by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press and the Pew Research Center’s Forum on Religion & Public Life finds signs of uneasiness over the mixing of religion and politics.

Nearly four in 10 Americans (38 percent) say there has been too much expression of religious faith and prayer from political leaders -- an all-time high since the Pew Research Center began asking the question more than a decade ago. Thirty percent say there has been too little.

Most Americans (54 percent) continue to say that churches and other houses of worship should keep out of politics. It’s the third consecutive poll conducted over the past four years in which more people have said churches and other houses of worship should keep out of politics than said they should express their views on social and political topics, according to Pew. That's also an about-face from 2006, when 51 percent of Americans believed churches should speak out and 46 percent said they should keep quiet.

The view that there is too much expression of religious faith by politicians remains far more widespread among Democrats than Republicans, and there are also divisions within the GOP primary electorate.

Fifty-seven percent of Republican and Republican-leaning voters who favor Mitt Romney (a Mormon) for the presidential nomination say churches should keep out of political matters. By contrast, 60 percent of GOP voters who support Rick Santorum (a devout Catholic) say that churches and other houses of worship should express their views on social and political questions.

And while more than half (55 percent) of Santorum’s supporters say there is too little expression of religious faith and prayer by political leaders, just one in four (24 percent) of Romney’s backers agree.

Santorum has worked hard on the campaign trail to court conservative Christian voters, and the former Pennsylvania senator has talked openly about the journey of his faith in visits to evangelical churches.

Kimberly Conger, a political science instructor at Colorado State University who has studied the intersection of religion and politics, says the latest Pew findings are not surprising.

“Religious people's opinions on the relationship between religion and politics seem to be driven by their political identity more than their religious one.  These results bear that out,” she said by email to msnbc.com.

“Republicans are less likely to think there is too much religious talk by political leaders, and Republicans are hearing more such talk than Democrats.  It is also unsurprising that there has been a slight uptick in the overall number of people uncomfortable with religious talk since the Republican primary has had some significant religious overtones.”

As to whether politicians should steer clear of religion on the campaign trail, Conger says it depends.

“It's clear from the breakdown of religious and political groups that Rick Santorum ought to keep talking about religion as long as he's fighting for the Republican nomination. But if he were to win the nomination, he'd have to start appealing to independents, a key voting group that's uncomfortable with candidates' religious talk,” she says.

“They key challenge in the general election will be for Republicans to broaden their appeal by toning down religious talk. But the data suggest that Democrats face a similar if less intense challenge in broadening their appeal by appearing more welcoming to religious beliefs. Both sides will have a fine line to walk.”

The Pew telephone survey was conducted March 7-11 among 1,503 adults. You can read the full results here.

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Nick Ut / AP file

Hustler magazine magnate Larry Flynt says there's no evidence porn is harmful.

The porn industry has an X-rated reaction to Rick Santorum’s vow to crack down on pornography if he’s elected president: Butt out.

Two giants in the industry contacted by msnbc.com scoff at the Republican presidential candidate's claims that porn is causing “a pandemic of harm” in America and contributing to violence against women.

Nonsense, says Hustler publisher Larry Flynt.  Absolutely no proof, says Steven Hirsch, founder and co-chairman of Los Angeles-based Vivid Entertainment, one of the largest makers of erotic movies.

Flynt notes that a 1969 commission set up by President Lyndon Johnson spent millions of dollars studying the impact of porn and concluded there was no evidence such materials were harmful.

“You have guys like Santorum come along and they bring out the bogeyman every chance they get,” Flynt said. "You will be hard-pressed to find anyone that can point out to you a study that shows harm is caused to anyone exposed to porn materials."

“I find it ironic that Republicans (like Santorum) are out there wanting less government and government intruding into our lives, but when it comes to moral issues they want government to legislate morality," says Hirsch. "It doesn’t work. It will never work.”

Santorum, a former Pennsylvania senator who is trying to woo social conservatives, says on his presidential campaign website that if elected he will hire an attorney general who will “vigorously” enforce federal obscenity laws curtailing distribution of hardcore porn.

He also says that studies have shown porn causes brain changes in adults and children, and that every family should be concerned about its harmful effects.

Santorum says he would enforce US obscenity laws that Obama ignores

The little-discussed position paper made the Internet rounds after The Daily Caller published a column this week calling attention to it.

Though Santorum rattles off a list of social harms that he says is caused by porn, he doesn’t specifically call for a ban on all porn in his website statement. Instead, he says, he’s most concerned about exposure to “hardcore” porn.

“While the Obama Department of Justice seems to favor pornographers over children and families, that will change under a Santorum Administration,” he writes.

Hirsch says a crackdown by the attorney general won’t work.

“We’ve seen that before. John Ashcroft was that guy. Edwin Meese was that guy. They can prosecute but ultimately it’s juries that decide what is and isn’t obscene,” Hirsch says. “Over last 20 years there have been very, very few obscenity convictions.”

Hirsch suggests making a deal with Santorum: “We will stay out of his church, and he will stay out of our bedrooms."

Santorum says he backs the efforts of the War on Illegal Pornography coalition, which is lobbying Congress, 2012 political candidates and the government to crack down on what it describes as "the growing amount of hardcore pornography available in America."

Santorum isn’t the first presidential candidate to vow to target porn.

Former GOP presidential candidate Michele Bachmann went further than Santorum. She signed a pledge vowing to support a constitutional amendment to ban all pornography and same-sex marriage. 

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Christopher Gregory / Getty Images

Presidential candidate Rick Santorum signs an autograph as he walks through the Old City in San Juan, Puerto Rico, on Thursday.

Republican presidential hopeful Rick Santorum appeared Thursday to try to undo some of the damage done by his comments that English should be Puerto Rico's official language if the predominantly Spanish-speaking commonwealth -- where he is campaigning ahead of the Sunday primary -- wants to become a state.

“Obviously Spanish would be the language here,” he told reporters before stopping for lunch in Old San Juan, according to The Wall Street Journal.

“We understand that you know the people of different cultures speak different languages, but we have a common language, and that’s what I was saying yesterday.”

Puerto Ricans are U.S. citizens who have a non-voting representative in Congress and can vote in presidential primaries -- but not the general election.

They will hold a referendum this November to decide whether or not the Caribbean island should become a state – a decision ultimately left to Congress. Past votes have ended with Puerto Ricans opting to maintain their commonwealth status.

'You have to comply'
In comments to the San Juan newspaper El Vocero, in which he also backed Puerto Ricans' right to self-determination, Santorum said English should be the official language in Puerto Rico if it wants to become a state:  "As in any other state, you have to comply with this and any federal law. And that is that English has to be the main language. There are other states with more than one language, as is the case in Hawaii, but to be a state in the United States, English has to be the main language."

On Thursday, he stood by the “condition” aspect of his remarks. “What I said is English has to be learned as a language, and this has to be a country where English is widely spoken and used, yes,” Santorum told reporters, according to ABC News/Univision. The island, he said, “needs to be a bilingual country, not just a Spanish-speaking country.”

About 4 million Puerto Ricans live on the island, with 4.2 million living in the mainland United States.

The U.S., which took over Puerto Rico from the Spanish in 1898 at the end of the Spanish-American War, tried to anglicize it and its institutions. The “Language Law” of 1902 recognized Spanish and English as official languages, and in the early part of the 20th century an attempt was made to make English the obligatory language of instruction, according to University of Puerto Rico Law School Professor Luis Muñiz-Argüelles. In 1947, the education commissioner ordered that Spanish be the language of instruction except for English instruction classes.

Losing a backer
Santorum’s comments led to the departure of one supporter: Oreste Ramos, a former Puerto Rican senator who rescinded his endorsement, ABC News/Univision reported.

“Such a requirement would be unconstitutional, and also would clash with our sociological and linguistic reality. As a question of principle I cannot back a person who holds that position,” Oreste said, Univision said, citing El Vocero. “As a Puerto Rican and Spanish-speaking U.S. citizen, I consider the position of Mr. Santorum offensive.”

Others in the island questioned the impact of the entire primary since Puerto Ricans can’t vote in the general election.

“It doesn’t even register on the radar for a lot of people here other than it’s in the media,” said Martiza Stanchich, an associate professor of English at the University of Puerto Rico’s Rio Piedras campus.

Local officials have organized mayoral primaries for the same day, which could help boost turnout.

But, she added that the Republican and Democratic presidential primaries were “really kind of a disgusting use of the island … what does Puerto Rico get back for this?”

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GOP presidential candidate Rick Santorum on Tuesday defended his 2008 comments on Satan.

Rick Santorum is far from alone in professing a belief in Satan. In fact, most Americans believe in the devil too.

Santorum, the former Pennsylvania senator and 2012 Republican presidential contender, is making headlines this week for comments he made at a Catholic university in 2008 about Satan having his “sights on” America.

In the speech, which resurfaced recently, Santorum told an audience at Ave Maria University in southwest Florida: “Satan [has been] attacking the great institutions of America, using those great vices of pride, vanity and sensuality as the root to attack all of the strong plants that [have] so deeply rooted in the American tradition.”

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He said Satan has been “most successful” in attacking academia, but that Satan also has gone after the church and popular culture. Santorum said politics and government would be the next to fall to Satan’s attack. “The body politic held up fairly well up until the last couple of decades but it is falling too.”

While such frank talk about spiritual warfare is uncommon among presidential candidates, surveys over the past few decades have shown that the majority of Americans do believe in Satan.

According to a 2007 Gallup poll, seven in 10 Americans said they believe in “the Devil,” while 8 percent were not sure. Twenty-one percent said they don’t believe in the devil.

Eighty-six percent said they believe in God, while 8 percent were not sure and 6 percent said they don’t believe in God.

A 2009 Harris Interactive survey found 60 percent of American adults believe in the devil, while 82 percent said they believe in God.

"Santorum's comments regarding his theory of the fall of American institutions is, I think, quite relevant in the current presidential debate," said C. Melissa Snarr, associate preofessor of ethics and society at Vanderbilt University Divinity School.

"In a public speech, Santorum offered a grand interpretation of the current challenges facing the United States. I think it is imperative to analyze and debate his version of a political theodicy (or why bad things happen to good countries) and ask whether his interpretation is one that voters should feel comfortable backing," Snarr said in an email to msnbc.com."

"What he's saying, it's certainly not any heresy," the Rev. Tom Reese, a senior fellow at Georgetown University's Woodstock Theological Center, told CNN. "It's the language some preachers would use that conservative Catholics would be very comfortable with. Is it the kind of language theology professors at Catholic universities would use? Probably not. They would likely see it more metaphorically," he said, according to CNN.

Santorum on Tuesday defended his 2008 speech.

“You know, I’m a person of faith. I believe in good and evil,” he told reporters following a rally in Phoenix. “I think if somehow or another, because you’re a person of faith you believe in good and evil [is] a disqualifier for president, we’re going to have a very small pool of candidates who can run for president.”

Snarr said the media is right to dissect the speech.

"Is the media making too much of it? No. He has chosen to make a very public interpretation of the trajectory of the United States (specifically citing an opposition candidate) and his public political theology should be discussed thoroughly," Snarr said in an email response.

She added: "This is not to say, however, that a belief in Satan or even spiritual warfare puts him at the 'extreme' end of Christianity. Belief in Satan and Satan's activity is present in multiple Christian traditions and particularly important for more theologically conservative evangelical believers— of whom there are many in the U.S."

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Rev. Franklin Graham, the son of evangelist Billy Graham and a prominent evangelical leader in his own right, waded into contentious waters Tuesday when asked for his views on the religious beliefs of President Obama and the GOP hopefuls.

Graham, the CEO and president of the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association, told a Morning Joe panel he couldn't say for certain that Obama is a Christian.

“You have to ask him. I cannot answer that question for anybody. All I know is I’m a sinner, and that God has forgiven me of my sins," Graham said. "You have to ask every person. He has said he’s a Christian, so I just have to assume that he is.”

But Graham also said he couldn't "categorically" say Obama wasn't a Muslim, in part, because Islam has gotten a "free pass" under Obama. Graham also said the Muslim world sees Obama as a "son of Islam," because the president's father and grandfather were Muslim.

According to Edina Lekovic, director of policy at the Muslim Public Affairs Council, being born in a Muslim family doesn't make one a Muslim. A person has to make an active choice to become a Muslim, Lekovic said. 

Obama has said again and again that he is a Christian, both as a presidential candidate and as president.

“I’m a Christian by choice,” Obama told a group of New Mexico voters last September, answering a question from a member of the audience. He said he has embraced his faith even though growing up, “my family didn’t, frankly. They weren’t folks who went to church every week.”

In Chicago, Obama was a member of Trinity United Church of Christ for years, but he quit in May 2008 after videos of the Rev. Jeremiah Wright’s racially-divisive sermons surfaced on the Web.

“Our relations with Trinity have been strained by the divisive statements of Reverend Wright, which sharply conflict with our own views,” Obama and his wife Michelle wrote at the time. 

The debate over the president's faith was brought up again on the campaign trail this Saturday, when Rick Santorum told a Tea Party crowd in Columbus, Ohio, that Obama's agenda is "not about you. It's not about you. It's not about your quality of life. It's not about your job. It's about some phony ideal, some phony theology. Oh, not a theology based on the Bible, a different theology, but no less a theology."

Related: Santorum defends 'theology' remark, Hitler inference; blames media

When pressed by reporters after Saturday's comments, the former Pennsylvania senator said he did not imply the president is not a Christian, but said the president was trumping religious freedoms. 

Graham told the Morning Joe panel that he and Santorum share the same moral beliefs, and that he's confident Santorum is a fellow Christian.

"His values are so clear on moral issues, no question about it," he told the Morning Joe panel. 

Graham spoke with a little less confidence about Gingrich's faith, and cast doubt on whether Romney's Mormonism is compatible with Christianity.

"I think Newt is a Christian, at least he told me he is," Graham said. He added that Romney's Mormon faith is not recognized as part of the Christian faith by most Christians, but he wouldn't give his own view.

Romney has stood by his faith, saying Mormonism's values are "as American as motherhood and apple pie."

"I believe in my Mormon faith," Romney said in a 2007 speech, "and I endeavor to live by it. My faith is the faith of my fathers. I'll be true to them and to my beliefs."

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It appears that Mitt Romney now has a Rick Santorum Internet-age problem.

Recall that Web users who search for "Santorum" using a tool like Google are immediately confronted with a parody site that offers a faux definition of the word "santorum" which is not suitable for work or polite conversations.  Within the past few weeks, enterprising Romney-haters have pulled off the same trick, albeit at a slightly less tasteless level.

Searching for Romney using Google now yields a page defining the term Romney as "to defecate in terror" within the first five links or so, reports Danny Sullivan of SearchEngineLand.com.  (Go ahead, try it for yourself).

Clicking on the site brings visitors to a Web site called "SpreadingRomney.com" which echoes the SpreadingSantorum.com site.  The page repeats the definition and links to a story about Romney's ill-fated family vacation that include a lengthy trip with the family dog strapped to the roof of the car.

"I don’t recall seeing it recently, so it appears to be a new gain,"  Sullivan wrote in a blog post about it.

The rise is unusually meteoric, and almost certainly signifies a concentrated effort to game Google's ranking system. In fact, Sullivan uncovered a page at DemocraticUnderground.com encouraging people to "Google Bomb" the SpreadingRomney site.

(Geeks would say this technique isn't, strictly speaking, a Google bomb. But it certainly must feel like one to the Romney camp).

The site launched on Jan. 10, site creator Jack Shepler told Sullivan. He also said he's not affiliated with any campaign, and created the site just to be funny, "and to make a point."

It got a boost when msnbc's Rachel Maddow mentioned it during her show two days later, but that hardly justifies the high Google ranking. SpreadingSantorum has been around for years, has attracted thousands of links the old-fashioned way, and the site offers real points of debate about gay rights debate.  SpreadingRomney.com is hardly more than a blank page, yet still managed to fool Google and Microsoft's Bing. (Msnbc.com is a joint venture of Microsoft and NBC Universal.)

We've discussed earlier how political entities can trick search engines, and why Google seems to let this go on as a form of political speech.

Sullivan supports that concept, but the quick rise of SpreadingRomney.com might be changing his mind a bit.

"For this site to leap-frog ... others, it creates all the same issues that Google initially encountered with real Google bombs, the impression that anyone can fire off a linking campaign and make it into the top results for anything," he said. "Certainly Google should take a harder look at why its algorithm rewarded a site with so little substance to it."

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