Romney also said that the campaign purposefully was using Ann Romney "sparingly…so that people don't get tired of her."

“We’ve given all you people need to know and understand about our financial situation and how we live our life,”

"I believe it's Mitt's time. I believe the country needs the kind of leadership he's going to offer… So I think it's our turn now,"

"Of course there were mostly women on the plane, but we had our Secret Service guys there," she added. "They took charge and the pilot was great and we felt pretty comfortable."

Asked what her primary worry would be should her husband succeed in defeating President Obama on Nov. 6, Mrs. Romney replied, "You know, I think my biggest concern, obviously, would just be for his mental well-being."

"I have all the confidence in the world in his ability, in his decisiveness and his leadership skills, in his understanding of the economy, in his understanding of what's missing right now in the economy - you know, pieces that are missing to get this jumpstarted," she continued. "So for me I think it would just be the emotional part of it."

'We call the rope line now the advice line because everyone cares and everyone wants to help and everyone wants to just give their piece, a little piece of advice.

'So I feel like my best advice is just to bring peace and calm to him and just trust in him and just say, "I know you can do it", but not to give him any advice because it gets too overwhelming.”

The would-be First Lady said that her husband would be looking to her in the audience during the three presidential debates in October.

'In all the past debates, he would find me in the audience and after each question, he’d look at me ’cause it was like, "Did I do O.K. Ann? Was that O.K.?" And I love that because he cares so much.

'I mean, we have such a good relationship and we have such a strong marriage and I know that he measures himself and how he’s doing by my face and how I think he’s doing, so I know in these next debates it’s going to be very important for me to be sitting in that audience.'

Mr. Romney’s team has concluded that debates are about creating moments and has equipped him with a series of zingers that he has memorized and has been practicing on aides since August. His strategy includes luring the president into appearing smug or evasive about his responsibility for the economy. (snip)

To prepare Mr. Romney, Mr. Portman has played Mr. Obama combatively, attacking Mr. Romney as a rich man who does not care about average Americans. Evidently, he has gotten under the candidate’s skin. “We get the chance to debate one another, and after the hour and a half or so is over, I want to kick him out of the room,” Mr. Romney said recently.

True to reputation, Mr. Romney has practiced for months, starting in June in Utah, through three days this month in Vermont. Once, when a problem with a charter plane kept Mr. Romney out until after midnight, his adviser, Beth Myers, asked if he still wanted to practice the next day. “Painful,” he e-mailed, “but yes.”

The Loneliness of Leadership
I suppose many of you watched President Nixon last night as I did, when he spoke to the nation and was listened to by the world. I watched him with great interest. I observed him as he wiped the perspiration from his face, realizing, I am sure, the importance of what he was saying. As I looked at him, I thought of the terrible loneliness of leadership.

True, he has advisors. He has at his beck and call any number of men with whom he can consult; but when all the chips are down, he has to face the world alone, as it were. His advisors do not face the cannon fire of public opinion. That comes to the leader.