Ann, the Woman Who Seeks to Humanize the Image of the Presidential Candidate

“Tonight I want to talk to you from my heart … I want to talk to you about love.” From the podium at the Republican convention, Ann, wife of Republican presidential candidate, Mitt Romney, tried to humanize her husband’s robotic image, presenting him as the head of a family facing problems like any other American family.

“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 Multiple Sclerosis or Breast Cancer,” said Ann, who was diagnosed with both diseases. “A storybook marriage? No, not at all. What Mitt Romney and I have is a real marriage.”

Mitt and Ann Romney have known each other since they were in high school. “This boy I met at a high school dance… his name is Mitt Romney and… I fell in love with him,” said Ann. They have been inseparable ever since. Ann has become one of his senior advisors; she is always with him at campaign events and often takes the floor.

Romney’s advisers have used Ann to reverse the idea that he is a distant billionaire who does not understand the needs of the average man, that the only thing he cares about is his Cayman Islands investments. Blonde, with easy smile, Ann is not afraid of large audiences. But her task is never easy.

Romney has been presenting himself as a successful businessman who has the capacity to implement economic policies that will lead the country out of the crisis. But, by placing emphasis on his past business, he reinforces the idea that his only interest is money and becoming the target of the Democratic opposition that accuses him of belonging to that 1 percent of the privileged population that pays a lower tax rate than their secretaries.

“I want to talk not about what divides us, but what holds us together.” Ann mentioned that her husband’s father never graduated from college. “Instead, he became a carpenter. He worked hard, and he became the head of a car company, and then the governor of Michigan.”

It was a clear reference to the typical American dream and also the way, according to her, Mitt followed in his father‘s footsteps.