The last time he ran for president, former Sen. Rick Santorum aroused Internet users by promising to take away their access to pornography.

Federal law makes distribution of hardcore pornography illegal, he said in a statement on his 2012 campaign website. All that's required is a president who will "vigorously" enforce the ban, the Pennsylvania Republican said, pledging to do so.

"While the Obama Department of Justice seems to favor pornographers over children and families, that will change under a Santorum Administration," the statement proclaimed.

The pledge attracted intense discussion after Santorum emerged as Mitt Romney's most prominent rival for the GOP nomination. It was laughed off by pornographers but discussed seriously by legal experts, some of whom said a crackdown might succeed – albeit imperfectly without a grand national firewall – if juries find porn sites and consumers guilty of distributing or receiving "obscene" content.

But as the 2016 presidential race heats up, the reliable social conservative – running again – says he's forgotten his position on the issue, perhaps dooming it to increasing irrelevance after a two-decade lull in prosecutions that coincided with a boom in availability of Internet porn.

"I don't even remember that position to be very honest with you," Santorum said during a recent roundtable interview at U.S. News. "I wish I could say I was cognizant of everything that's on my website."

He added: "I'm not, candidly, familiar with the federal laws with respect to pornography. … but all I would say is whatever the laws are, unlike this president I will enforce [them]."

Santorum and the more than dozen other Republicans running for president soon will be asked to stake a position on the issue by Patrick Trueman, a Reagan administration prosecutor who now leads the group National Center on Sexual Exploitation.

Trueman proudly participated in federal pornography prosecutions in the 1980s and during the last election cycle said that Romney's campaign, too, had promised to vigorously enforce obscenity laws, but that he suspected Romney "saw that Rick Santorum got beat up in the mainstream press for being so forthright" and elected not to advertise his position.

Trueman believes it would be fairly easy to win obscenity convictions for porn featuring consensual adult group sex, depictions of violence and unusual fetishes. Anything more salacious than waist-up female nudity would be eligible for conviction somewhere in the country, he told The Daily Caller during the last election.

It's legal for individuals to possess pornography their neighbors may deem obscene, according to the Justice Department, but it's technically illegal under many circumstances to distribute or receive it.

There's reason to doubt any change to status quo nonenforcement of obscenity laws as they pertain to pornography featuring consenting adults. In addition to presumably shifting public opinion, the past three presidential administrations – including the Republican George W. Bush administration – showed no interest in cracking the whip.