Rick Santorum's campaign is up with an ad on Monday tying Mitt Romney to President Barack Obama, even morphing the president's face into that of his opponent.
"What if I told you this man's big government-mandated health care included $50 abortions and killed thousands of jobs?" a woman says in front of a green screen showing a picture of the president. "Would you ever vote for him?"
She next asks whether voters would approve of someone who supported "radical" cap-and-trade legislation, the Wall Street bailout or higher taxes.
"What if I told you the man I'm talking about isn't him?" she says, again showing a picture of the president. "It's him," she says as the picture morphs into Romney.
It's not Santorum's first ad that deploys an eerie face morph -- his campaign used the same tactic in a recent anti-Obama ad, blending the president's face with that of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
The Santorum campaign is desperately attempting to remain relevant in the race, campaigning hard ahead ofTuesday primaries in Wisconsin, Maryland and the District of Columbia. He will not be on the ballot in the District.
He also faces a growing chorus of establishment support for Romney, including from endorsers who say the GOP nomination process needs to end as soon as possible, meaning Santorum should get out now.
UPDATE: 12:15 p.m. -- The Romney campaign responded to the ad on Monday morning, calling it "sad" and "patently false."
"It is sad to see him completely lose his bearings and revert to patently false claims," Romney spokeswoman Andrea Saul said of Santorum in a statement. "Senator Santorum is at a point of desperation that he will say or do anything. It is pretty clear that he is lashing out at everyone around him in order to prop up his sinking campaign."
The campaign also released a fact check of the ad, citing Politifact posts on claims that Romney supported cap and trade legislation, that he was responsible for taxpayer-funded abortion in Massachusetts, that his health care law killed jobs and that he raised taxes -- all of which Politifact deemed "Mostly False."