Ann Romney tries to win over women voters

>> and as the republican party establishment finally is rallying around mitt romney , he faces a growing gender problem for the fall campaign according to that new " usa today " gap lup poll. his best political weapon, his wife ann. joining me is fred malek hosting a fund-raiser featuring ann romney later this months. it is marlene mahlik, the better half of the team who is hosting the ann romney birthday salute here and getting a lot of attention. you are a strong romney supporter and you are experienced within the republican party . first of all, is it time for everyone to come together? what is the damage that is being done now by newt gingrich and rick santorum staying in the race and being as aggressive as they are.

>> i think we're long past the time when we should be coming together. four years ago, john mccain basically wrapped up the nomination in early march than gave him some running room.

>> what rick santorum says he then lost. so what's the hurry?

>> the hurry is this. every day that goes by we are facing candidates in the primary who are basically running against each other instead of getting their basic message out about jobs creation, revibing the economy and contrasting that with obama . our day's wasted. we need to get to the point where we stop talking against each other and start talking about what we are for and how to build this country. mitt romney does talk about how he wants to create jobs and grow the economy. frankly the news items that get picked up that are really news, we understand that, are when the candidates kind of contest with each other. and then you have a primary, then the next week you have a primary and the news is dominated by that. we need to get that behind us and get behind mitt romney . we need to have him focusing on his message of growing this economy, creating jobs, and regaining our status in the world.

>> ann romney as we say is one of the secret weapons , not so secret weapons of mitt romney . she was on wbao radio. this is how she phrased her role in the campaign.

>> mitt can get very intense and i have the ability to kind of talk him off the rails sometimes and just say hey, let's look at what's really important. he does the same thing for me. but i have been known at times by my sons that is the name that they call me is the mitts stabilizer.

>> at the same time, rick santorum has a new ad out going after both obama and mitt romney but particularly going after romney saying he's no better than obama . take a look.

>> what if i told you this man's big government mandating health care included $50 abortions and killed thousands of jobs? would you ever vote for him?

>> one more thing. what if i told you the man i'm talking about isn't him? it's him.

>> as a republican leader. if you could take off your hat a romney supporter, what do you think about that at this point in the campaign?

>> it's highly destructive. rick santorum will not be the nominee of this party. he knows that now i'm sure. mitt romney is going to be the nominee. there's nothing well served by this except to hurt mitt romney . this is going to come down to you once we get this over with, you're going to come down to two choices. one, the candidate barack obama who's really never had a real job or created a real job in a private sector against somebody who's fostered companies, starred companies, created tens of thousands of jobs, revived a flagging olympics, made it a real beacon for the olympic movement , somebody who's had great success, great skills in building jobs and growing companies in the private sector . i don't think -- i think once he starts contrasting on that and starts talking about his message about how he's going to get that done by keeping taxes low, by stimulating economic growth through the private sector not to creating public sector jobs, you're going to have a whole different picture here. the sooner we can get on with it, the better.

>> is romney going to win wisconsin tomorrow?

>> he's going to win three states, wisconsin , maryland and d.c. maryland and d.c. with pretty much givens. wisconsin , yes, he'll win that pretty as well well.

>> should rick santorum then get out or is it more logical he'll say let's hang on to pennsylvania. it's my home state. i've got a good shot there.

>> i think he should get out. the chances are he will lose pennsylvania. that would not be a particularly encouraging thing for him. i think the best thing for him to do would be to get out sooner rather than later. who knows.

>> fred lalek, who knows is the sub text of the whole campaign. thanks for being with us.