Ann Romney Dazzles in Tampa

Who is Mitt Romney? If Americans didn’t know who he was before, they know now. Tuesday night at the RNC convention in Tampa, Mrs. Ann Romney destroyed the stereotype of an out-of-touch Romney family. She entered the Tampa Bay Times forum to a roaring and standing crowd with many chanting, “We love you Ann!”

Romney spoke directly to a struggling America. She told them personal stories about her struggles with breast cancer, living with MS and raising five children. She spoke of the love her husband has given her through more than 40 years of marriage.

“I want to talk not about what divides us, but what holds us together as an American family. I want to talk to you tonight about that one great thing that unites us, that one thing that brings us our greatest joy when times are good, and the deepest solace in our dark hours. Tonight I want to talk to you about love,” Romney said. “I want to talk to you about the deep love I have for a man I met at a dance.”

Romney detailed her marriage with the man she met at that dance. They got married young, they lived in a basement apartment, and used the ironing board as a kitchen table. Soon after, they had their first child and today, they have five children and eighteen grandchildren. They worked hard for what they owned and faced their own struggles along the way.

“I read somewhere that Mitt and I have a ‘storybook marriage.’ Well, in the storybooks I read, there were never long, long, rainy winter afternoons in a house with five boys screaming at once. And those storybooks never seemed to have chapters called MS or Breast Cancer. A storybook marriage?  No, not at all. What Mitt Romney and I have is a real marriage,” she said.

Being a mother and a grandmother, Romney had a thing or two to say about how she relates to women in America based on her own experiences and what she has seen traveling the country.

“I have seen and heard stories about how hard it is to get ahead,” she said. “It’s the moms of this nation, single, married, widowed, who really hold this country together.”

Although Romney stayed away from a direct discussion of policy, she made a strong case for her husband based on principles he learned working in the private sector and as the governor of Massachusetts.

“We don’t want easy, but the last few years have been harder than they used to be,”
she said. “We’re not dumb enough to think there are easy answers, but we’re smart enough to think there are better ones.”

Although the focus of her speech was on Mitt Romney’s personal character and experience, Mrs. Romney made a few indirect digs at the current administration.

“It amazes me to see his history of success being attacked,” she said. “I can tell you Mitt Romney was not handed success, he built it.”

Ann Romney is the granddaughter of a Welsh coal miner, so on top of knowing the ins and outs of motherhood, she knows all about hard labor.

“No one will work harder, no one will care more and no one will move heaven and earth like Mitt Romney to make this country a better place to live,” she said. “This man will not fail. This man will not let us down. This man will lift up America.”