stage and said pastor jefferss hit it out of the park. so it's interesting that he would use those choice of words given what pastor jefferss thoughts are on mormonism. mitt romney earlier this morning followed bill bennet, who sa prominent christian conservative. let me first play bill bennet's comments and then i'll explain what mitt romney had to say about those comments. >> and i would say to pastor jefferss, you stepped on and obscured the words of perry and sanatorium and cain and bachmann and everyone else who has spoken here. you did rick perry no good, sir, in what you had to say. and if i may say, i hope you have to announce this to the press in terms of the debate between mormons and evangelical christians, i was there first. the one true holy catholic and apostolic and universal church, and i forgive you all in the name of the father and the -- >> so bill bennet is trying to use some humor there to lighten the mood. governor romney, when he got up on stage after bill bennet, he said bill bennet hit it out of the park. it was a

this was the event that pt put pastor jefferss here. tried to get the governor to comment to this issue. he walked right past us. the romney campaign, you better believe they are dealing with this issue and when governor romney made those comments at the beginning of his speech, that's what he was talking about. >> well, it was subtle and you had to be listening closely and we know you were. just quickly here, we have been talking about this controversy. it was big news last night. but there, with those conservative voters, do you get the sense that they want to talk about mitt romney's religion? is this an issue for them? >> for a sliver, and it may be a chunk. it's hard to quantify of ee van dwell kal christian voters, christian conservatives inside the republican party, yes, this is an issue. if it weren't an issue, this prominent pastor from dallas, robert jefferss would not have said this yesterday. he said to me in his interview, there are pollsters that will say this is not an issue, but when they go inside the voting booth, it m

helped organized perry's die of prayer told a christian radio talk show host they should take pastor jefferss for raising the issue. >> i said mormonism is a cult and it would give credence to a cult to have a mormon candidate. >> if i have to spend all of my time disassociating myself with something someone says about me or for that matter if president obama has to disassociate people who support him with things they say, we're not going to get much time about how to create jobs. >> romney campaign officials are lived over perry's refusal to condemn the anti-mormon rhetoric. others have been more forceful. >> we're not running for theologian in chief. we're running for president of the united states of america. >> reporter: in the 2008 republican primary, evangelical voters were a solid majority in two key early states, iowa and south carolina. the perry needs their support to beat romney and is actively seeking it over other candidates with strong evangelical ties. herman cain said over the weekend perry was wrong if he thought he would own the evangelical vote. jan crawford, cbs news, wash