Ann and Mitt Romney Are a Joyfully Polite and Decent Couple

Ann Romney participated in the CNN Situation Room interview with her husband, Mitt Romney, Republican presidential candidate, yesterday.

She is a lovely woman.

Mrs. Romney was born in 1949 in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan, where she met her future husband when they were still in elementary school. Their relation led her, a practicing Christian who favored the Episcopalian Church, to convert to The Church of the Latter Day Saints before they married in 1969. She has a degree in education and French language from Harvard, earned at night after the birth of the first of their five sons. She has devoted herself to her family sons and husband.

In 1998, Ann Romney was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. Treatments, both mainstream and alternative, have allowed her to manage her MS, which is in remission. As part of her therapy, Mrs. Romney has found equestrian activities helpful, especially dressage, for which she has received recognition as an amateur.

Mrs. Romney has also had precancerous breast lumps, discovered in 2008, removed and is still undergoing preventive treatment.

She has been active in children’s charities, including Operation Kids. When her husband became governor of Massachusetts, she took on the job of Governor’s Liaison for faith-based groups in Massachusetts seeking grants from the federal government under its Faith Based and Community Activities Initiatives. Those who worked with her in this role say she was a “dynamo” who got a lot done, although she was not particularly in the public eye otherwise while her husband was governor.

But, during this time, Ann Romney was already becoming recognized nationally as the spearhead for her husband’s 2008 presidential bid.

In the 2012 presidential campaign, Mrs. Romney has travelled extensively with her husband, assuming once again a public role. Mitt Romney has often said that he would not stay in the political arena, seeking election to the presidency, if his wife’s health had deteriorated. It was Ann Romney who convinced her husband to undertake the 2012 effort, saying last night that she believes he is the one person who can turn American around.

When Mitt Romney made the unfortunate comment about a $10,000 bet with Rick Perry during a December debate, it was Ann who stepped up to him afterward and said, “There are a lot of things you do well. Betting isn't one of them.”

In a current ad on TV in Iowa, Ann Romney talks about the importance of measuring a candidate's character and integrity, an apparent knock against Gingrich.

"You can never predict what kind of tough decisions are going to come in front of a president's desk. But if you can trust they will do the right thing, and maybe the hard thing, and maybe not the popular thing, and if you really want to know how a person will operate, look at how they've lived their life.”

It is in her role as a presidential candidate’s wife that she appeared last evening on CNN. She talked about the 2008 and 2012 campaigns and the tough times when her husband or she is attacked.

“You know, it's funny.  This is our second time around, and the first time, at the end of the last campaign, I turned to Mitt, and I said one thing I know for certain, I'm never going to do this again. Because it is hard. It's hard to hear these things.  It's hard to go through this. Mitt laughed, because he says I said that after each pregnancy and I think most people know I have five kids….But going through it the second time gives you a different perspective. You recognize - and we didn't get into this the second time without really believing that Mitt needed to actually be the President of the United States.  Running is difficult. But we're running because we love America and because we believe America's heading in the wrong direction and because we truly believe Mitt is the right one to lead this country back to the prosperity that - and to the job creation and everything else.  So going through the process, I feel - it's funny this time.  I don't - I don't feel anything when I see those things.”
Watching last night, I was struck by the calmness and down to earth quality of Ann Romney. She is poised but natural, educated but not stiff about what she knows, thoughtfully convinced of her positions but not eager to push her convictions into America's face.
And she is obviously the center of her husband's life. All you need to do is watch him watch her...the affection, love, pride nad devotion cannot be hidden. Ann Romney is clearly on the same wavelength because she is relaxed and ready to speak without hesitation. Her body language is positive and directed toward her husband.
They are such a well-behaved, devoted, polite and decent couple that I wonder why anyone else should be elected. Maybe it's time for some old-fashioned courtesy and politeness to descend on the United States, emanating from a Romney White House.
Why not get back to the traditional basics Americans cherish?