Ann Romney Campaigns In Traverse City

UPDATED: 7:15pm 

By Tom Carr

Ann Romney, wife of Presidential candidate Mitt Romney, fired up the base in a brief visit to Traverse City today.

She reminded the voters crowded into the Park Place Hotel reception room of her family's Michigan roots. She told the crowd:

"I love northern Michigan, especially, and I think a lot of you know I grew up in Manistee." A Romney campaign spokeswoman says Ann Romney is from Southeast Michigan and that maybe she meant she used to "go up" to Manistee.

She also mentioned the fact that Mitt Romney’s father, George Romney, was governor of the state.

“If you want to see how Mitt’s going to govern, look to how he governed as governor of Massachusetts, but also look to George Romney,” she said during the five-minute appearance.

“Mitt is so much like his dad in so many ways: honest, fair, always does the right thing, doesn’t stick his finger in the air to decide which way he’s going to go.”                                                                                                 

She also said that former first lady Barbara Bush told her this is the most important election of her lifetime, though she didn’t elaborate.

Ann Romney said she was reluctant to let her husband run again after he failed to be nominated in 2008.

She said she feared it might be too late for him to turn the country around.

“I said, you know Mitt, I don’t want to go through all this again, if you’re going to tell me that if you finally get through the primaries and you beat an incumbent president – which isn’t easy but we’re going to do – I said, is it going to be too late, when you finally get there?” she told the crowd.

“He said it’s growing late, but it’s not too late yet,” she added.

Ann Romney said Michigan is a must-win state for her husband.