We'll take your word for it, Ann

Asked about criticism that Romney is "too stiff," Ann Romney laughed and replied, "I guess we'd better unzip him, and let the real Mitt Romney out because he is not."

—Ann Romney, on perceptions that Mitt Romney is "stiff," personality-wise.

... Are Mormons just sheltered in general, or is Ann unusually so? Or is the answer, as so often, TBA's gutter instincts?

UPDATE: Alec MacGillis caught that one, too.

... In other news, towards a quantum-mechanical theory of Romney:

The basic concepts behind this model are:

Complementarity. In much the same way that light is both a particle and a wave, Mitt Romney is both a moderate and a conservative, depending on the situation (Fig. 1).


Fig. 1: The famous “Schrödinger’s candidate” scenario. For as long as Mitt Romney remains in this box, he is both a moderate and a conservative.

It is not that he is one or the other; it is not that he is one and then the other. He is both at the same time.

Probability. Mitt Romney’s political viewpoints can be expressed only in terms of likelihood, not certainty. While some views are obviously far less likely than others, no view can be thought of as absolutely impossible. Thus, for instance, there is at any given moment a nonzero chance that Mitt Romney supports child slavery.

Uncertainty. Frustrating as it may be, the rules of quantum campaigning dictate that no human being can ever simultaneously know both what Mitt Romney’s current position is and where that position will be at some future date. This is known as the “principle uncertainty principle.”

Entanglement. It doesn’t matter whether it’s a proton, neutron or Mormon: the act of observing cannot be separated from the outcome of the observation. By asking Mitt Romney how he feels about an issue, you unavoidably affect how he feels about it. More precisely, Mitt Romney will feel every possible way about an issue until the moment he is asked about it, at which point the many feelings decohere into the single answer most likely to please the asker.

Noncausality. The Romney campaign often violates, and even reverses, the law of cause and effect. For example, ordinarily the cause of getting the most votes leads to the effect of being considered the most electable candidate. But in the case of Mitt Romney, the cause of being considered the most electable candidate actually produces the effect of getting the most votes.

Possibly worth one of your ten monthly clicks to read the whole thing.