Mitt's wife delights in campaign

All that many voters know about GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney is he's Mormon — something his wife, Ann, said she's trying to change by hitting the campaign trail herself.

"We find that is all they know about Mitt," Ann Romney told the Deseret Morning News Tuesday during a fund-raising stop in Salt Lake City for her husband. "That's just one piece of the puzzle."

Utahns, of course, know Mitt Romney from his years leading the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City, and they had contributed nearly $4 million to his campaign by midyear. The majority of Utahns belong to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

But while Romney is doing well in Utah as well as the early voting states of Iowa and New Hampshire, he trails in national polls. "People don't know him," Ann Romney said. "It's very important for me to be getting out and doing as much as I can."

Including, sometimes, answering questions about her family's LDS faith. "We are breaking down — I'm assuming we are — some misperceptions. But that's part of the job we have to do to break through," she said.

Since April, she has maintained her own campaign schedule, pitching her husband's presidential bid to mostly Republican women's organizations throughout the South as well as in California and other states.

And Ann Romney is convinced there will come a time when the campaign can move on from discussing religion. "That's exactly what happened in Massachusetts," she said, referring to her husband's term as that state's governor.

"It's interesting to people if that's all they know about," she said. "But when we fill in the dots and they look at the whole picture, it fades and people look at his record, his stands and what his positions are."

The Romneys, who fell in love in high school and have been married since 1969, have been described as too good to be true. The Boston press has even suggested over the years that they live in a sort of Twilight Zone because they don't drink, smoke or quarrel.

Ann Romney said she's not bothered by comments about her marriage, any more than she is by the interest in the size of her family. The Romneys have five sons, all married and all active in the campaign, and 10 grandchildren.

"Our marriage is solid and strong, and we're proud of that," she said. "There have been lots of jokes made about it, but we find it kind of funny, too."

The couple does stand out among the top Republicans competing in the 2008 race.

The GOP front-runner, former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, has been married three times. And Arizona Sen. John McCain and former Tennessee Sen. Fred Thompson are both on their second marriages.