“A week ago I would have said there’s no way, I can’t conceive of a major candidate’s campaign intentionally using such tactics,” said Mark DeMoss, an Atlanta-based public relations executive who works primarily with evangelical leaders and is an unpaid adviser to Romney. “It was inconceivable to me that that could be the case, just because I think it’s not smart politically.”

But Demoss told The Huffington Post that the actions of Texan Baptist Pastor Robert Jefress — who first thrust the Mormonism issue into the campaign 10 days ago — have given him “doubt” about whether the Perry campaign is as removed from attacks on Romney’s faith as it has tried to appear.

“I would have bet money when Robert Jeffress surfaced there in Washington and then started going on TV programs that somebody would have gotten him to stop doing interviews. And he did them for a couple days,” DeMoss said. “That’s what made me question it whether they wanted him doing it or not. If they didn’t want him doing it, I think they could have stopped him from doing it. I think they would have asked him and said, ‘This isn’t helping us.'”