WASHINGTON-- Focusing tightly on their campaign's economy-first message, a pair of Mitt Romney's top advisers on Saturday dismissed recent efforts by the president to reach out to younger voters and the so-called "likability gap" between President Barack Obama and the presumptive GOP nominee with a simple argument: The 2012 election is not a popularity contest.

"This election is not going to be about who's cooler," Romney senior adviser Peter Flaherty said at a Washington Post Live Newsmaker Forum. "The question is going to be, who do you trust to run the economy?"

Eric Fehrnstrom, another top Romney adviser, also criticized Obama for his appearance earlier this week on "Late Night with Jimmy Fallon," on the University of North Carolina campus, where the president "Slow Jammed the News." Fehrnstrom said the president's performace was "off key," and showed inappropriate levity about an issue - the possible doubling of student loan interest rates - that deserved to be taken more seriously.

"You won't see the governor slow jam the news," Fehrnstrom said, not discounting the possibility Romney could appear on more late-night talk shows or even "Saturday Night Live," thanks to the ability of those shows to reach voters who normally don't follow politics as closely. 

And while Fehrnstrom predicted Americans would "fall in love with" Ann and Mitt Romney as the election progressed, the advisers' downplaying of personal popularity in favor of an economic-competency argument is consistent with Romney's own recent comments on the stump.

"Even if you like Barack Obama, we can't afford Barack Obama," Romney said at a campaign event in North Carolina on Wednesday.

Romney's advisers also alluded to that trip to North Carolina - and other recent campaign events in swing states - as illustrative of how they see the electoral map playing out in November.

"There are a handful of states that we view as key to the outcome," Fehnrstrom said, in response to a question from the forum's moderator, The Washington Post's Dan Balz. While declining to lay out a specific "path to victory," as the Obama campaign has done, Fehrnstrom said the campaign's geographical focuses would not be a surprise to anyone who has followed their recent movements, and that New Hampshire, Ohio, Florida, Nevada, Virginia and North Carolina were all places where "the campaign will be waged."

Asked if there was any one reliably Democratic state that could be moved into the Romney column this fall, Fehrnstrom predicted that Michigan, where the former Massachusetts governor was born and raised, could flip from blue to red. They're familiar with the Romney "brand" there, Fehrnstrom said.

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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Updated at 7:47 a.m. ET: Campaigns live and die on the momentum swings of big victories, strong debate performances or debilitating gaffes. But nominations are won with delegates, and in this year's Republican presidential campaign, the math is relentless: Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney is starting to pile them up, and faster than any of his rivals.

That's partly because of the nature of the 2012 race, but it's also because, more than in any other recent campaign, the state Republican parties are doling out their delegates in a variety of ways this year. They've moved away from the more traditional system in which the winner of a congressional district takes most or all of that district's delegates — a winner-take-all approach that has led to the nomination's having been decided after just a few big primaries and caucuses in previous cycles. 

Romney takes big Ohio prize in close race

Casual followers of politics might assume that former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, for example, won most of the 76 delegates Tuesday night in his home state, Georgia — and he would have under the winner-take-all system. But the Republican National Committee has tried to steer the state parties toward district allocations that more accurately reflect the popular vote.

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

The upshot is that even though Gingrich won Georgia, according to NBC News' projection Tuesday night, he could end up with fewer than half its delegates. Romney, meanwhile — despite finishing second or third — could come away with a quarter of them or more.

Math like that made it possible for Romney to hit 323 total delegates, according to NBC News' projections through 12:35 a.m. ET — more than triple the number won by Gingrich (105) and former Sen. Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania (101) and 13½ times those won by Rep. Ron Paul of Texas (24).

And it's the kind of math that makes it harder for a non-front-running candidate to make a big leap in delegates, which he could do by winning an upset in a big winner-take-all state.

Check out the full Super Tuesday results here

The problem for Santorum and Gingrich is that there are only 12 such opportunities this year, compared to 25 in 2008. That's the number of states — none of them on Super Tuesday — that were running largely winner-take-all contests, while 22 were awarding delegates more along proportional lines.

Slideshow: Voters head to polls on Super Tuesday

Mark Humphrey / AP

See pictures from around America as 11 states hold contests that will award a combined 424 delegates in the Republican primary.

Launch slideshow

Patchwork of rules
(As for the rest of the states, they were waiting for state conventions or were using a combination of the two systems, many of them with unique complications — like Ohio, where delegates were being allocated proportionally unless one candidate won a clear majority, in which case it would switch to winner-take-all. Tennessee was using a similar arrangement, except the winner-take-all trigger wouldn't be pulled unless one candidate won two-thirds of the popular vote.

(None of this takes into account the three wild-card delegate spots in each district reserved for members of the RNC. Still with us?)

Boil it all down, and what it means is that having to navigate such a patchwork of rules rewards candidates with well-financed national campaigns that can compete in every state. 

It rewards Romney, in other words.

The NBC political unit's guide to Super Tuesday

Besides having won six contests going in to Tuesday, Romney had also finished second in four of the five others, winning a significant number of delegates in many of them. Besides adding three more wins by mid-evening, he was also running second or was in a virtual tie for the lead in most of the rest of Tuesday's contests that had reported returns.

Certainly, an unexpected development, like a candidate's withdrawal or a major mistake in a debate, could change the calculus, but as it stands now, the problem for Gingrich and Santorum is that, no matter how good they look in national polls compared to Romney, they're finishing third or fourth too often. 

Justin Sullivan / Getty Images

Mitt Romney arrives at a Super Tuesday gathering with his family in Boston.

Meanwhile, the majority of winner-take-all states, where they theoretically could begin to catch up, are backloaded this year, with most coming in April or later. By that time, Romney could well have taken on the mantle of inevitable nominee, thanks to lackluster but good-enough finishes to keep the delegates ticking into his column.

Romney all but pointed that out himself at a rally Tuesday night in Boston:

"Tonight, we are counting up the delegates for the convention — and counting down the days until November," he said.

TRAVERSE CITY, MICH – Returning to Michigan after a brief trip to Florida for the rained-out Daytona 500 race, Mitt Romney began his closing arguments Sunday night, telling an audience of Michiganders that he needed their help. He pressed them to help him create a new national movement.

"I need you guys to get out and vote," Romney told an audience of more than 500 in this town on the Michigan's northwestern edge.

"I need your help. I want us to take that first step towards a better tomorrow. I want us to restore the greatness of America," Romney said.

Michigan has assumed an unusual importance in the state primary. Romney, the son of a three-term Michigan governor, and who was born and raised in the state, was presumed to clinch the nomination with ease. But recent polls show Romney in a dead heat with former Sen. Rick Santorum.

Santorum also visited Traverse City, a town of roughly 14,000 today. He drew a smaller crowd, about 250 people, at a campaign stop this afternoon.

Gus Batsikouras, an automobile sales manager, and his wife Sandra Batsikouras attended both candidates’ events. He wanted to test-drive both candidates in person.

Batsikouras, who supported Romney in the 2008 primary here, told NBC News before the Romney event that he hadn’t made a decision.

"They can say they have the greatest product out there, but unless you test-drive it, you'll never know," Batsikouras said. "I want a concrete plan of action for what he's going to do when he gets into office."

Although he voted for Romney four years ago, Batsikouras said he had reservations about the former Massachusetts governor that had little to do with Santorum. He said his main concerns are energy, national defense and the economy.

"We're not sure who is going to show up – which Romney is going to show up," Batsikouras said. "Is he going to hold true to what he's saying? I still need to figure that out."

Following Romney's address, in which the candidate addressed Batsikouras' concerns: Energy (build the Keystone Pipeline System), national defense (increase shipbuilding, add 100,000 more troops) and the economy (a 20-percent tax cut across the board), the couple was impressed but not sold.

"My only knock against him is he wasn't very specific He's still generalizing things," Batsikouras said. "Bottom line is how are they going to execute?" Batsikouras said. "Both [Santorum or Romney] will do a fine job. No doubt about that."

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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