Let the Romney Olympics begin

>> coming days, especially. thanks for your time.

>> thank you.

>>> after the break, the romney games. the thrill of victory and the agony of defeat. at the lake house .

>>> the summer olympics come early for the romney family . the " washington post " reports about an annual competition held at the family's house in new hampshire. the romney olympics have long included a mini triathalon of biking, swimming and running that pits mitt and his five sons and their wives against one another. but after mitt once nearly finished last behind a daughter-in-law who had given birth to her second child a couple of months earlier, the ultra-competitive and self-described unathletic patriarch expanded the games to give himself a better shot. sam stein, expansion of the games i think now includes a competition to see who can hammer nails into a board fastest. what does this tell us about mitt romney ?

>> the whole family doesn't have to hammer nails into the board. we invented that game. what does it say -- i don't know. they like crazy games.

>> he likes winning.

>> of course he likes winning. it's funny he has to expand the actual playing field of games to do it. but i'm not sure i can read too much into it. it just seems like a quirky little family trait, i guess. i don't know.

>> we know that -- we talked about the veepstakes and every time romney goes away, there tends to be a little bit of a casting call for potential running mate.

>> can rubio and portman hammer nails into the board.

>> who can hang on to the monkey bars longer.

>> whatever it says about romney as a potential president, it says a lot about the olympics . synchronized swimming . here's a guy who actually ran an olympics or allegedly saved them. why are some sports in the olympics and others not. now we have an answer.

>> that is true. i think his management, his shepherding of the romney olympics --

>> i will say, i think what it does say, nail thing aside, is it's very much in keeping with what we know about romney . he likes structure and organization and my family vacations were like here's the summer pool pass, we're going to work. this is like you're not really left to fend for yourself. you know what you're doing, the day is structured and if you're not a competitive person, get with the game.

>> they all coordinate their outfits.

>> they gather i believe in the evenings for powwow sessions on parenting. which is what your family does.

>> we had a large american gladiators backyard.

>> that explains a lot.

>> i think the other part of this that goes to sort of the campaign is barack obama was very good about talking about himself without annoying people. he had books that basically told his own life story before he was famous, helped him become famous and that's partly because he was a good writer and he's intelligent, partly because of a comfort level that he had that i think he exuded, whether you liked him or not, he knew he was comfortable in his skin. we read these stories and it's all we know really about the family because mitt romney , even when he tries to open up and i feel for him in the sense that this is a weird presidential process we have in this country but when he tries to open it, it often brings very awkward or weird, and then we have these stories that are sort of secondhand or whatever they're trying to do there. i think that's a problem for him because ultimately the president is in your living room, you want to understand who he is and there's still this distance.

>> his best diplomat is still ann romney , who gets better every day.