The Mormon card, for so long held hidden up the anti-Romney crowd’s collective sleeve, is now well and truly on the table.

Evan McMorris-Santoro reports on the pile-on here, while Ryan Reilly catches up with Romney detractor Bryan Fischer, who says the problem’s not that Romney is a Mormon, but that he’s not Mormon enough.

Well, you can’t say Mitt Romney didn’t try to warn us.

Towards the end of his Value Voters speech the GOP frontrunner noted that “poisonous language” was not helpful to the conservative cause, and said that “one of the speakers who’ll follow me today has crossed that line.”

Pretty much on cue, talk radio host and American Family Association Director Bryan Fischer came out and started cranking out the crazy.

We’ll bring you more of his splendidly entertaining remarks shortly, but in the meantime here’s our favorite: prayers at Major League Baseball games have prevented another 9/11.

All eyes were on Mitt Romney at the Value Voters Summit, to see how he’d push back against yesterday’s anti-Mormon slurs by a Perry-backing pastor.

So what did he do? Well, he did make something of a swipe, but if you weren’t watching carefully you may have missed it. Evan McMorris-Santoro explains what happened, here.

While the ballroom was still empty and her speech at the Values Voter Summit wasn’t scheduled to begin for more than 30 minutes, Michelle Bachmann’s campaign optimistically predicted a “standing-room only crowd.”

They didn’t get it.

So, Mitt Romney gave his big foreign policy speech today, outlining how he’d make a really bold break with Obama by doing… Uh… Um… Er… Anyhow, he looked very stern while saying it, whatever it was.

TPM’s Benjy Sarlin has a rather more cogent take on all this, which you can watch here.

From a media perspective the annual Values Voter Summit is usually – if you’ll pardon the expression – good value for money. And this year is no exception. The long-bubbling Mormon issue has finally exploded, leaving observers wondering what damage the shrapnel will do to the Romney campaign. Follow the twists and turns throughout both tonight and tomorrow via TPM’s livewire, which is being staffed by our ace reporters Evan McMorris-Santoro and Ryan Reilly.

The “Fast and Furious” imbroglio is really starting to live up to its name. Now that some Republicans are starting to imply Justice Department officials may be accessories to murder, things have ratcheted all the way to eleven. And this is Eric Holder’s response.

So, unlike the evangelical pastor who endorsed him today, it seems Rick Perry does not believe Mormonism is a cult. But does that mean he’ll condemn the endorser who set this off and who says Romney isn’t a Christian? Well, the straight-talking Texan has a good way out of that.

Pastor who says Mormonism is a cult says Perry welcomed his endorsement.

Organizers of the Values Voter Summit, eager to prevent bad press stories, have a simple message for attendees dealing with the press: “Don’t be the weird one.”