Ann Romney Says Campaign Will 'Unzip' the Real Mitt

Steve Senne / AP Photo

GREEN BAY, Wis. - 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?'"

Laughing, Ann Romney responded, "Well, you know, I guess we better unzip him and let the real Mitt Romney out because he is not!"

"You know, it is so funny to me that that is the perception out there. Because he is funny, he is engaging, he is witty," said Ann Romney. "He is always playing jokes. When I met him as a teenager, he was the life of the party. And yet, he is also a very serious person and an accomplished person. And I think a lot of times, people see him in the debate setting."

"That's why I like to get out there, and get people to see the other side of Mitt, and know us in a different reflection when you see the family and how funny he is with the boys and with the grandkids," she explained. "And you know, just what a super guy he is. That's part of what I am doing, is letting people see the other side of Mitt."

Asked whether she is aware that she is considered by many as Romney's "stabilizer," or the campaign's "secret weapon," Ann said that she did.

"Oh yes," she said, laughing again. "Well you know, I think a lot of us in marriage know that you play different roles at different times. And Mitt can get VERY intense, and I can have the ability to kind of talk him off the rails sometimes and say, 'Hey let's look at what is really important and let's do that now.'"

"I can tell you, he does the same for me. In marriage, it's always that give and take and rebalancing that we have to do in how we can help each other," she said. "But, I have been known at times by my sons, that is the name that they call me-the Mitt stabilizer."

Maryland's primary will be held on Tuesday. Ann Romney has not been on the trail with her husband who has been campaigning in Wisconsin, saying that she is taking some time off from the stump.