Zandar is wrong. Ann Romney will make female voters love Mitt (h/t reader V):
Ann Romney defended her husband’s sense of humor today during a radio interview, explaining that if people think the candidate seems too stiff at times as the host suggested, she thinks “we better unzip him and let the real Mitt Romney out.”
Ann Romney’s remarks came during an interview with Baltimore radio station WBAL, during which the host asked her, “And one of the things, Ann Romney, that folks talk about with your husband, Mitt Romney, and I’ve seen him in casual conversation-He comes off very smooth and okay. But sometimes he comes off stiff. Do you have to fight back some criticism, like ‘My husband isn’t stiff, OK?
The strange political underbelly where Republican mommies humanize their husbands with awkward, easily-double-entendred comments while Democratic wives are caricatured as politically problematic angry bitches (it’s not just Michelle Obama — remember Theresa Heinz Kerry, Tipper Gore, and Hillary).
But it’s all working great for Republicans with women voters, so who I am to laugh at it.
BarbCat
Keep it up, Republicans?
Martin
Easily-double-entendred? That understates it by several orders of magnitude.
forked tongue
(Howard Dean’s wife too, remember how warmly she was treated?)
Comrade Mary
Doug, my day was brutal enough without suddenly having to envision the Romneyrection. Thanks so much.
TaMara (BHF)
@Martin: This.
I’m far (f–a—r) from a prude, but this made me uncomfortable.
But maybe it was just the image it evoked. Ewww.
Shari
One of my ads is “Mormon Foods for Storage” 25 year shelf life. Any connection?
TaMara (BHF)
@Comrade Mary: We are so in sync much of the time.
Comrade Mary
@Comrade Mary: Or was she actually suggesting that Romney may take over the pitchman spot Bob Dole has vacated?
Eww. Don’t want to envision that, either.
Violet
Ann Romney wasn’t popular during Mitt’s first run for office. Apparently she grew up rich and came across as entitled and out of touch. Her MS and cancer has made her much more of a sympathetic character, but I suspect she still has problems relating to normal people. Once the Romneys try to relate to real people, not just Republican primary voters, it could be a different story.
Comrade Mary
@TaMara (BHF): Hee! Sometimes it’s nice, sometimes it isn’t.
kindness
@BarbCat:
Sorry, Ann has already said Mitt is ‘not that stiff’. These jokes….they write themselves.
Bruce S
Okay – am I going to be the first one to conflate the obvious double-entendre with Mormon humor and note that there’s a potential problem in unzipping those Magic Underpants to let Real Mitt rip. Ann needs to run this by the elders back in Salt Lake City.
the fugitive uterus
yeh, mental image not necessary, Ann, please
Martin
@Comrade Mary: Consider the implication that Mitt is only stiff in front of the electorate and not stiff at all when home with his wife.
redshirt
Other robot sez
“If you are referring to sexuality, I am… fully functional, programmed in… multiple techniques.”
dr. bloor
What’s that old saying? “Once you go magic underwear…”
the fugitive uterus
@Martin: heh, see what you did there?
Keith G
Seems like pretty harmless stuff – filler for a slow news day.
Who cares? I have yet to see any evidence that wives of nominees drive voting behavior.
David Koch
That Ann Romney is a piece of ass.
the fugitive uterus
oh man, i am so off my game, i didn’t even make the magic underwear connection
it’s Monday
Steeplejack
@Comrade Mary:
All the trees are the right height.
Also: phrasing!
David Koch
Man, this takes me back, but did Frank Zappa hate “Reich Marshall Tipper”.
vikram
@Dougj – thanks! Yeah, her comment made my day…:)
Jay in Oregon
@redshirt:
http://romnoid.tumblr.com/post/19124015530/i-am-programmed-in-multiple-techniques-a-broad
dmsilev
I do have to say “the real Mitt Romney” has got to be the strangest pet name for a p3nis I’ve ever heard of.
And I think I speak for multitudes in hoping that we never see “the real Mitt Romney” make an appearance on the campaign trail.
dmsilev
@Martin:
It’s the T-ball of double-entendres. We should keep it and give it to first-graders to get them started in this key life-skill.
jl
OK, she has the Biden gaffe down. But is that enough? I await the in-depth Politico series on this game changer.
redshirt
@dmsilev: I’m sure “The Real Mitt Romney” has great hair. Presidential also too.
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
Bob Dole knows how to solve this problem.
Bruce S
I have to give the AP writer credit for typing this totally straight, but NOT!
Honestly, she was feeding this thing to bloggers on a silver platter.
jim filyaw
according to willard’s ole lady, ‘he isn’t stiff’?! as if he didn’t have problems enough. i thought that viagra was one of the few insurance sexual benefits the republicans were down with.
Comrade Mary
Will the real Mitt Romney please stand — ARGHH!
LanceThruster
At the banquet for the 25th Anniversary of the Apollo moon landing in Beverly Hills, Al Gore told a very funny, self-deprecating joke.
It went something like this —
“Tipper, you don’t think I’m stiff and wooden, do you?”
“No, of course not dear.”
“Tipper, I’m over here. That’s the coat rack.”
Comrade Mary
I don’t want to see what campaign swag will be added to the Romney campaign site.
Rafer Janders
This is the real Mitt Romney. The real, authentic, true to his core Mitt Romney is a man who is incredibly, embarrasingly awkward in public. He’s been a public figure for about two decades, long enough for us all to accurately assess him. He’s not going to get any smoother at this. This is as good as it gets.
Now, in private he may be a different, looser, more relaxed man. But running for president is not a task you can do in private.
replicnt6
@redshirt: You could land a 747 on that thing.
Bruce S
“But running for president is not a task you can do in private.”
Not since William McKinley successfully campaigned from his front porch.
David Koch
Oh yeah. Remember how the media said Liddy Dole’s oprah winfrey like 1996 convention speech was gonna save Bob Dole failing campaign.
For those who don’t remember, instead of speaking from a podium, she took a hand mic and walked around the audience like Phil Donahue.
MattF
@Rafer Janders: Y’see, I think not having a soul is a problem, even in private.
Amir Khalid
My mind is boggled. Did no one in the studio catch these unintended double entendres? Any teenagers who happened to be listening to the interview would have found themselves suddenly fighting the giggles. Many adults, also too.
dmsilev
@Amir Khalid: This is the political movement that chose the name ‘tea-baggers’, and kept with it for probably a couple of months while the rest of the world giggled uncontrollably. In other words, no, nobody there caught the double entendres.
bemused
Of course Ann thinks Mitt is the wittiest guy ever. Most far right conservatives have lame senses of humor.
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
So it looks like Etch-A-Sketch isn’t the only toy manufacturer that is going to get priceless publicity from the real Mitt Romney.
BarbCat
@kindness: Speaking of writing themselves, Ann better get ready for the “That’s what she said!” jokes.
dmsilev
In 2008, the Citizens United people put out a series of fluffing films called The Real John McCain.
This time, the fluffing will be literal.
Yelli
Normal people? She relates to normal, real people as defined by Michele Bachmann. ‘Cuz us on the left coast, we aren’t actually real people…we are Obamabots or sumthin.
Tonal Crow
Ok. I unzipped romney_2012_firmware_v299.15.44a.zip, and found the following:
1. Three autographed photos of Sarah Palin, posed provocatively but fully clothed. In one, what appears to have been a Starbucks cup was incompletely Photoshopped out of her right hand;
2. A large binary file named “8763248769872369019827823798973775510405678486238762348.bin”, which my virus scanner says is infected with hundreds of different viruses, including “Tyrannus Tex [Trj]”, “GOPfraud [Trj]”, “Ryanite2012 [BIOS]”, and “Lielielie-lielielielielielielie [Trj]”; and
3. An unintelligible 18 minute-long .mp3 file named “Southern encounters with R.M.N.mp3”.
Not much there, I’m afraid.
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
@David Koch:
that was a reference to the sort of TV advertising that Bob Dole starred in after the 1996 erection, er, I mean election.
catclub
Well, at least we will know who let the dog(s) out.
dmsilev
@Rafer Janders:
On the other hand, thanks to indecent-exposure laws, letting the real Mitt Romney out should *only* be done in private.
Citizen_X
@LanceThruster:
Great. So the guy who brought us that fake-ass global warming was celebrating the fake-ass moon landing.
/Alex Jones
catclub
Tipper Gore is the outlier there. Trying to censor rock lyrics WAS unpopular with the democratic base.
Martin
I just considered something: maybe the studio lights overheat Romneybot and deactivate his emotion processor?
Gin & Tonic
@David Koch: And now he’s dead and she’s not. Where’s the justice?
beltane
@Yelli: Also, I don’t think Ann Romney has any problem shelling out the $3,000 a month required for MS drugs. Hard to have sympathy for her when her husband and her party want to force every “normal” MS patient in this country to be uninsured and uninsurable.
wrb
“the Real…”
And women complain that men objectify them.
Damn, that Annie has just one thing on her mind.
dr. bloor
@LanceThruster:
Gee, what a coincidence. Mitt told a really funny one last week about firing workers in Michigan.
Mouse Tolliver
As Sterling Archer would say, “Phrasing!”
geg6
Silly Doug. Don’t you know that all Democrat women are ball-busting, lesbian, hairy-legged sluts?
Jeebus. Where have you been?
Tom Q
@Rafer Janders: This is a really key point. Lots of politicians are more relaxed in private — Al Gore by all accounts was; I’ve even seen Michael Dukakis gives interviews that made me ask “Where were you during the campaign?” Just to have the remotest success in politics requires a mild level of social skills.
But running for president is different. A guy who was the mosy dyanmic governor in North Dakota history could get out there and flame out in the big time. It’s like getting to the big leagues — or the Super Bowl, or whatever your preferred sporting metaphor. Many many people have achieved success in the arena at a lower level; only a very chosen few (in my lifetime, Kennedy, Clinton, unfortunately Reagan, and undeniably Obama) are able to maintain that incandescent quality at the highest rung. Pretending Romney even comes close is full-on self-delusion. (Naturally, we can expect the pres corps to maintain that pretense till November)
portlander
@catclub: More like the media’s spin that Tipper Gore was trying to censor rock lyrics was unpopular with the democratic base. Certainly no one these days is arguing that movie or tv rating systems amount to censorship.
JasonF
I can see why a radio host who, while talking to Ann Romney, addresses her by first and last name and refers to her husband by first and last name, would consider Mitt to be “smooth.”
chopper
jesus, i know romney’s jealous of the conservatives’ love of santorum, but trying to join him in being tied to wacky sexual imagery is not a smart move.
Yelli
@beltane: What are you talkin bout? They already stated they are successful and that the rest of us should just get over it! Geez…move on. When is he going to have to stop apologizing for being rich? :)
Arclite
I’m still pissed at Tipper for her anti-videogame crusade, but I’ll agree with you on the rest. Michelle especially seems completely together: kind, intelligent, outgoing, happy. She seems pretty much perfect.
portlander
@Arclite:
anti-videogame crusade?
I am so glad I stopped taking in any corporate media almost 2 decades ago. Who knows what crazy (by crazy I mean not based in reality) things I would believe today if I hadn’t.
middlewest
@portlander: So, you missed the whole, “Bully” thing, huh?
Edit: Aaah. I see you’ve missed a lot of things. Getting old sucks.
LanceThruster
@Citizen_X:
I often use the phrase, “Why is we can fake putting a man on the moon, but we can’t [insert capability not yet obtainable here]?”
LanceThruster
@dr. bloor:
Nothing compares with his high-larius “dog on the roof” travel stories.
wrb
All these comments and no one has asked whether the real Mitt has ever been touched by Santorum?
salacious crumb
well a flaccid Romney is better than a stiff one….cant fuck the American people with a flaccid persona deep down.
quannlace
If you have to defend someone’s sense of humor, it’s pretty obvious most ‘normal’ people aren’t getting whatever kernel of wit you think resides there.
gnomedad
Fish in a barrel.
Patricia Kayden
What has she done to humanize Romneybot? I must be missing something since I have only heard her speak before his victory speeches.
Give me Michelle O — absolutely love her. You can keep Mrs. Romney.
portlander
@middlewest:
Are people saying that the R rating of Bully is censorship? I’m pretty sure that’s not the argument being put forward, certainly not in that HuffPo piece.
People are expressing concerns that those under 17 won’t be able to see the movie, but that doesn’t mean the movie has been “censored”. As for me, I’m passing on that particular outrage du jour anyway; I don’t agree with the R-rating but I’ve never known minors over the age of 11 or 12 that have had trouble seeing R-rated movies.
rstz
Reading between the lines, I take it this to mean the real Mr. Romney is a little prick.
Mrs. Romney’s quote is such a set up for so many jokes.
Mike
Shorter Romney: “Excuse me, while I whip this out!” ;-)
gocart mozart
we better unzip him and let the real Mitt Romney out.
-He comes off very smooth and okay. But sometimes he comes off stiff. Do you have to fight back some criticism, like ‘My husband isn’t stiff, OK?
I think what she is trying to say is that Romney is a dick.
Frankensteinbeck
@Keith G:
I believe there’s a widespread itch that says ‘this man can’t be as incompetent a candidate as he obviously is. We have to be missing something.’
Delia
@Bruce S:
In the interest of accuracy and as someone who grew up in Utah and knows about these things, I can state authoritatively that there are no zippers in Mormon underwear. I suspect they keep Mitt zipped up in a body bag in the deep freeze between public viewings.
Robert waldmann
Mitt won’t achieve election this way.
SectarianSofa
Some kind of Freudian slippage in there, I’m sure, but I’m steering clear of any further interpretation.
@Robert waldmann:
Nice one.
LosGatosCA
I thought this was a Greg Allman reference.
“Well, I’m easier to hold”
I’m no Angel.
At least I just listened to it, first time in a long time. So the misunderstanding was worth it.