It was the first big national speech of Ann Romney’s career – and, with a few dissenters, most people felt she knocked it out of the park.
She was smiling, giggly, and a bit nervous, dressed in a bright red dress, and her emotional appeal to “trust Mitt” seemed to resonate with voters.
Her task was to “humanize” her sometimes wooden husband, and she won convention-goers over with her comment that her 43-year marriage to her high school sweetheart wasn’t a “storybook marriage” but a “real marriage,” filled with screaming boys and shared hardship as her husband helped her face multiple sclerosis and breast cancer.
She also made a not-so-subtle appeal to a demographic with whom Romney struggles. “I love you women,” she shouted to a cheering crowd, before telling them that “it’s the moms who always have to work a little harder.”
Pandering? Maybe, and not everyone was won over, especially by Mrs. Romney’s attempt to relate to experiences of hardship. But the overall consensus here was that Ann needs to speak more often.
