Now Ann Romney takes the stage. Good contrast with the red dress against the blue background. Looks like they turned off the moving smoke stuff. She is very telegenic. Starts out by acknowledging the hurricane and asks for everyone to keep the people in its path on their minds.
She is talking about her husband, of course. This is a typical thing now. This type of speech was pioneered by Elizabeth Dole. Dole set the standard for this type of speech and the standard she set was very high. That's good because it forces these women who have followed her to do at least as well. I didn't care for McSlug's wife at all. Ann Romney seems much more real in her presentation of the Dole speech. Good eye contact. She has been giving speeches in public for a long time. Or she is a natural. Or both. She is very, very good. Has the attention of everyone in the hall. Earlier when others were speaking you could occasionally see someone consulting their smartphones...not now. Everyone is paying attention to her. She is a good warmup for Christie.
She starts out by identifying with all of the women, especially mothers, in the hall and in the television audience. She is saying "I'm you." A neat trick for a multi-millionaire. This is, of course, the lead in for Mitt.
So...she is humanizing Mitt...now that she has established that she is every woman in the audience she is now establishing that Mitt is every guy. Or...more importantly, she is establishing that Mitt is the guy that every woman would want for a husband and father to their children. As I said, she is humanizing him. This is, of course, critical since the media and O'Bongo have gone the distance in an attempt to de-humanize him. She is doing this by way of recounting her personal history with Mitt. How they met. How they got married. How they had kids...grandkids. The audience is eating it up. As I said, she is a pro at this or a natural or both. She is a lot better at timing the pauses with the applause lines. Maybe her speech is better written. Don't know.
One of the subconscious themes here is that she is contrasting her marriage with the O'Bongo's. Not directly, of course. She isn't holding them up side by side but by talking about how wonderful her marriage is she is inviting the contrast. Likewise with her talking up Mitt's morality and principles and values, etc. Because that's what an election is about...a comparison and a contrast. She does throw in the "he built it" about his business after all of this talk about how great Mitt is...comparison and contrast without any implicit comparison and contrast. Again, this is the Elizabeth Dole speech to perfection.
More comparing herself and Mitt to every normal couple in America. The "we are you" message is front and center.
Not a barn burner speech but it wasn't supposed to be...that's coming up with Christie, I suppose. She did exactly what she was supposed to do with this speech. Authoritative and direct without being shrill and/or creepy like Chewbacca O'Bongo.
The one thing at variance with the Elizabeth Dole speech was she didn't go down into the audience and mingle with the delegates Oprah-style. I'm okay with that. She didn't need to do it to be effective.
Mitt comes out at the end and does the kiss and hug thing. And he did it without the disgusting saliva laden deep tongue thing that Algore did with poor Tipper.
