Ann Romney, Mitt’s Voting Weapon

They’re never without their wives. For Republican candidates — even more so than for the Democrats — it is imperative to stand at the podium with their spouses; it symbolizes their attachment to family values. In this respect, Mitt Romney looks like a winner. Ann, his spouse, is stuck to him like glue. And unlike Callista, Newt Gingrich’s wife, for example, she has been getting quite involved in the campaign. She defends her husband, debates and even uses Twitter. At 63 years old, she is always dressed in flamboyant jackets, the opposite of a woman suppressed.

Wives have thankless roles. In 2008, Michelle Obama was sidelined by her husband’s advisors after she made several declarations that were judged to be both unpatriotic and capable of scaring away white voters. For Ann Romney, it’s the opposite. She has been carefully maneuvered to the front by the Republican camp, and Mitt Romney never forgets to talk about her. He recounts their meeting in elementary school, their flirting in high school and their 42 years of marriage. If he wanted to banish the specter of anti-Mormon prejudices, it was not the former governor of Massachusetts himself who managed to do so. It was Ann, or the image of a happy and monogamous marriage.

Up until the present, the Mormon aspect has largely remained taboo, with the exception of an attack at the beginning of the campaign, directed by an Evangelical pastor close to Texan Rick Perry. But the perceptions are there and, in popular culture, Mormonism remains linked to polygamy, even if the practice has been forbidden for more than a century. Recently, comedian Stephen Colbert waxed ironically about Mitt Romney’s great-grandfather’s exile to Mexico, leaving “with his wife” (a photo appeared on the screen), “and his wife,” (a second photo) “and his wife,” (a third photo). The ancestor, Miles Park Romney, had five wives — the last of whom he wed after polygamy was outlawed in 1890 — and a total of 30 children.

In 2007, during her husband’s first bid for the White House, Ann Romney didn’t hesitate to complain about the subject. The big difference, she said, between Mitt and his rivals — who had gone through divorces — was that “he has only married one woman.” This time around, she has avoided attracting attention to herself up to this point. Her presence is supposedly sufficient to underline the contrast. And she voluntarily testifies that her model spouse is Barack Obama’s most probable adversary. She has even brought crowds of female voters to the brink of tears by recounting how he was “so stable, so present” during her battle with breast cancer in 2008, at the end of the electoral campaign that she had hated.

In order to marry Mitt in 1969, Ann Davies — the daughter of a self-taught Welshman-turned-industrialist in Michigan — made a last-minute conversion to the Church of Latter-Day Saints. They had known each other since high school and were promised to each other. But when he left for France as a missionary, she wrote a break-up letter, telling him that she was seeing someone else. Mitt Romney sometimes brings up this difficult experience in his campaign discourse (to humanize himself). In the end, she met him at the airport and he proposed to her in the car. Their marriage took place in Michigan and then in Salt Lake City. The father of the bride was not allowed to enter the Mormon temple, where only those who practice the faith are admitted. However, year later, he was posthumously baptized under the Mormon rites, which give a second chance to the dead.

A mother of five children — all boys, born in the span of 11 years — the very friendly Ann Romney is supposed to humanize a man who grew up in a privileged family. This plan sometimes backfires. As her husband has indicated, she owns two Cadillacs — one in California, the other in Massachusetts. She is also a racehorse owner; her horses are presented as indispensable companions in her struggle against Multiple Sclerosis (she was diagnosed in 1998). The Romneys invested more than $250,000 in a stud farm in California and Ann has become obsessed with equestrianism. “My horses rejuvenate me like you can’t believe,” she declared to Fox News. “Some people have lovers in every port. I have horses in every port.” If her husband is elected, she is expected to ride her horses at the White House.

Ann Romney has been at the center of a national debate ever since Democratic consultant Hilary Rosen, exasperated at hearing Mitt Romney pretend that his spouse was able to educate him about women’s issues, remarked that she “has actually never worked a day in her life.” Romney’s camp instantly denounced that outrage against the sacred image of the American “mom.” And Ann immediately replied on her brand-new Twitter account (@AnnDRomney) that she “made a choice to stay home and raise five boys. Believe me, it was hard work.” If one believes her advisors, she didn’t even have a cook or a babysitter, even though she is the spouse of a multi-millionaire investment-fund manager.

The episode could not been played out more effectively for Mitt Romney, who has yet to get overcome his persistent handicap among female voters. Traditionally, women vote Democratic, but this year the gender gap (the rift between men and women regarding their political preferences) has become more of an abyss. The controversy over the inclusion of contraception in health care coverage, spearheaded by Catholic fundamentalist Rick Santorum, scared a number of female voters. Within a few weeks the Republicans had dropped a dozen points in the polls. By mid-April, Mitt Romney was lagging 20 points behind Barack Obama among female voters.

Thanks to Ann, Romney hopes to overcome his handicap. Even Barack Obama felt obliged to defend the “attacked mom,” remarking that “there is no tougher job than being a mother.”