TAMPA, Fla. — For the past nine days, Republican efforts to bridge the polling gap with women have been strained by Todd Akin and a GOP platform that pushes far to the right on abortion.
On the first primetime night of the Republican National Convention here, the GOP dispatched Ann Romney to put the past nine days behind them.
Romney’s highly anticipated address to delegates focused less on “humanizing” Mitt Romney with personal anecdotes as it did on persuading American women to vote Republican, which she did by looking squarely in the camera and arguing that President Obama had failed women: “We’re too smart to know there aren’t easy answers. But we’re not dumb enough to accept that there aren’t better answers.”
Romney did offer plenty of personal anecdotes — she referred to Mitt Romney throughout her speech as the man she “met at a school dance” — but the real meat of the speech was all about bringing women back into the fold.
“I love you, women!” Romney shouted at one point, going off the prepared text. She focused most of her attention on moms, a group she had great success with earlier this year thanks to Hilary Rosen.
Romney is, of course, a mother of five sons, and she endeavored to make a connection with all the mothers watching.
“You know what it’s like to work a little harder during the day to earn the respect you deserve at work and then come home to help with that book report, which just has to be done,” Romney said.
Unmentioned in the speech were the issues Democrats say are prying women away from Mitt Romney and the GOP — health and choice. Ann Romney didn’t mention abortion, and beyond her own struggles with breast cancer and MS, she did not address access to health care.
“You know the fastest route to the local emergency room and which doctors actually answer the phone when you call at night,” Romney said, again addressing mothers.
Earlier in the campaign, Mitt Romney said that Ann was his ambassador to women. In her first major national speech of the presidential campaign, the whole Republican Party tried to put her in that role as well.
