CONVENTION SPEECHES (from the Committee on
Arrangements)
Mrs. Ann Romney
August 28, 2012
[Remarks as Prepared for
Delivery]
Luce, thank you for that kind introduction.
I want to talk to you tonight not about politics and not about party.
And
while there are many important issues we'll hear discussed in this
convention and throughout this campaign, tonight I want to talk to you
from my heart about our hearts.
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.
I
want to talk to you about the deep and abiding love I have for a man I
met at a dance many years ago. And the profound love I have, and I know
we share, for this country.
I want to talk to you about that
love so deep only a mother can fathom it -- the love we have for our
children and our children's children.
And I want us to think
tonight about the love we all share for those Americans, our brothers
and sisters, who are going through difficult times, whose days are
never easy, nights are always long, and whose work never seems done.
They
are here among us tonight in this hall; they are here in neighborhoods
across Tampa and all across America. The parents who lie awake at night
side by side, wondering how they'll be able to pay the mortgage or make
the rent; the single dad who's working extra hours tonight, so that his
kids can buy some new clothes to go back to school, can take a school
trip or play a sport, so his kids can feel... like the other kids.
And
the working moms who love their jobs but would like to work just a
little less to spend more time with the kids, but that's just out of
the question with this economy. Or that couple who would like to have
another child, but wonder how will they afford it.
I've been all
across this country for the past year and a half and heard these
stories of how hard it is to get ahead now. I've heard your voices:
"I'm running in place," "we just can't get ahead."
Sometimes I
think that late at night, if we were all silent for just a few moments
and listened carefully, we could hear a great collective sigh from the
moms and dads across America who made it through another day, and know
that they'll make it through another one tomorrow. But in that end of
the day moment, they just aren't sure how.
And if you listen carefully, you'll hear the women sighing a little bit
more than the men. It's how it is, isn't it?
It's the moms who always have to work a little harder, to make
everything right.
It's
the moms of this nation -- single, married, widowed -- who really hold
this country together. We're the mothers, we're the wives, we're the
grandmothers, we're the big sisters, we're the little sisters, we're
the daughters.
You know it's true, don't you?
You're the ones who always have to do a little more.
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.
You know what those late
night phone calls with an elderly parent are like and the long weekend
drives just to see how they're doing.
You know the fastest route to the local emergency room and which
doctors actually answer the phone when you call at night.
You
know what it's like to sit in that graduation ceremony and wonder how
it was that so many long days turned into years that went by so quickly.
You are the best of America.
You are the hope of America.
There would not be an America without you.
Tonight, we salute you and sing your praises.
I'm
not sure if men really understand this, but I don't think there's a
woman in America who really expects her life to be easy. In our own
ways, we all know better!
And that's fine. We don't want easy.
But these last few years have been harder than they needed to be. It's
all the little things -- that price at the pump you just can't believe,
the grocery bills that just get bigger; all those things that used to
be free, like school sports, are now one more bill to pay. It's all the
little things that pile up to become big things. And the big
things
-- the good jobs, the chance at college, that home you want to buy,
just get harder. Everything has become harder.
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.
And that is where this boy I met at a high school dance comes in.
His name is Mitt Romney and you really should get to know him.
I
could tell you why I fell in love with him -- he was tall, laughed a
lot, was nervous -- girls like that, it shows the guy's a little
intimidated -- and he was nice to my parents but he was really glad
when my parents weren't around.
That's a good thing. And he made me laugh.
I
am the granddaughter of a Welsh coal miner who was determined that his
kids get out of the mines. My dad got his first job when he was six
years old, in a little village in Wales called Nantyffyllon, cleaning
bottles at the Colliers Arms.
When he was 15, dad came to
America. In our country, he saw hope and an opportunity to escape from
poverty. He moved to a small town in the great state of Michigan.
There, he started a business -- one he built himself, by the way.
He raised a family. And he became mayor of our town.
My
dad would often remind my brothers and me how fortunate we were to grow
up in a place like America. He wanted us to have every
opportunity
that came with life in this country -- and so he pushed us to be our
best and give our all.
Inside the houses that lined the streets
of our town, there were a lot of good fathers teaching their sons and
daughters those same values. I didn't know it at the time, but
one of
those dads was my future father-in-law, George Romney.
Mitt's dad 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.
When
Mitt and I met and fell in love, we were determined not to let anything
stand in the way of our life together. I was an Episcopalian. He was a
Mormon.
We were very young. Both still in college. There were
many reasons to delay marriage, and you know? We just didn't
care. We
got married and moved into a basement apartment. We walked to class
together, shared the housekeeping, and ate a lot of pasta and tuna
fish. Our desk was a door propped up on sawhorses. Our
dining room
table was a fold down ironing board in the kitchen. Those were
very
special days.
Then our first son came along. All at once I'm 22
years old, with a baby and a husband who's going to business school and
law school at the same time, and I can tell you, probably like every
other girl who finds herself in a new life far from family and friends,
with a new baby and a new husband, that it dawned on me that I had
absolutely no idea what I was getting into.
That was 42 years
ago. Now we have five sons and 18 grandchildren and I'm still in love
with that boy I met at a high school dance.
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.
I know this good and decent man for what he is -- warm and loving and
patient.
He
has tried to live his life with a set of values centered on family,
faith, and love of one's fellow man. From the time we were first
married, I've seen him spend countless hours helping others. I've seen
him drop everything to help a friend in trouble, and been there when
late-night calls of panic came from a member of our church whose child
had been taken to the hospital.
You may not agree with Mitt's
positions on issues or his politics. Massachusetts is only 13%
Republican, so it's not like that's a shock.
But let me say this to every American who is thinking about who should
be our next President:
No one will work harder.
No one will care more.
No one will move heaven and earth like Mitt Romney to make this country
a better place to live!
It's
true that Mitt has been successful at each new challenge he has taken
on. It amazes me to see his history of success actually being
attacked. Are those really the values that made our country
great? As
a mom of five boys, do we want to raise our children to be afraid of
success?
Do we send our children out in the world with the advice, "Try to do...
okay?"
And
let's be honest. If the last four years had been more successful, do we
really think there would be this attack on Mitt Romney's success?
Of course not.
Mitt
will be the first to tell you that he is the most fortunate man in the
world. He had two loving parents who gave him strong values and taught
him the value of work. He had the chance to get the education his
father never had.
But as his partner on this amazing journey, I can tell you Mitt Romney
was not handed success.
He built it.
He
stayed in Massachusetts after graduate school and got a job. I saw the
long hours that started with that first job. I was there when he and a
small group of friends talked about starting a new company. I was
there when they struggled and wondered if the whole idea just wasn't
going to work. Mitt's reaction was to work harder and press on.
Today that company has become another great American success story.
Has it made those who started the company successful beyond their
dreams?
Yes, it has.
It
allowed us to give our sons the chance at good educations and made all
those long hours of book reports and homework worth every minute.
It's
given us the deep satisfaction of being able to help others in ways
that we could never have imagined. Mitt doesn't like to talk
about how
he has helped others because he sees it as a privilege, not a political
talking point. And we're no different than the millions of
Americans
who quietly help their neighbors, their churches and their
communities. They don't do it so that others will think more of
them.
They do it because there IS no greater joy.
"Give and it shall be given unto you."
But
because this is America, that small company which grew has helped so
many others lead better lives. The jobs that grew from the risks they
took have become college educations, first homes. That success
has
helped fund scholarships, pensions, and retirement funds. This is
the
genius of America: dreams fulfilled help others launch new dreams.
At
every turn in his life, this man I met at a high school dance, has
helped lift up others. He did it with the Olympics, when many
wanted
to give up.
He did it in Massachusetts, where he guided a state from economic
crisis to unemployment of just 4.7%.
Under
Mitt, Massachusetts's schools were the best in the nation. The
best.
He started the John and Abigail Adams scholarships, which give the top
25% of high school graduates a four-year tuition-free scholarship.
This is the man America needs.
This
is the man who will wake up every day with the determination to solve
the problems that others say can't be solved, to fix what others say is
beyond repair. This is the man who will work harder than anyone so that
we can work a little less hard.
I can't tell you what will
happen over the next four years. But I can only stand here tonight, as
a wife, a mother, a grandmother, an American, and make you this solemn
commitment:
This man will not fail.
This man will not let us down.
This man will lift up America!
It
has been 47 years since that tall, kind of charming young man brought
me home from our first dance. Not every day since has been easy.
But he still makes me laugh. And never once did I have a single reason
to doubt that I was the luckiest woman in the world.
I said tonight I wanted to talk to you about love. Look into your
hearts.
This is our country.
This is our future.
These are our children and grandchildren.
You can trust Mitt.
He loves America.
He will take us to a better place, just as he took me home safely from
that dance.
Give him that chance.
Give America that chance.
God bless each of you and God Bless the United States of America.
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