Ann Romney rallies GOP support in Lancaster

    If the past week is any indicator, the presidential race in Pennsylvania is close enough for the wives of the candidates to pay a visit, but not the candidates themselves.

    Before Ann Romney took the stage in Lancaster County Monday in support of her husband Mitt Romney’s presidential bid, Pennsylvania GOP chairman Rob Gleason warmed up the crowd of hundreds.

    “The polls have closed in Pennsylvania. We are dead even in Pennsylvania,” he said. “We can win Pennsylvania.”

    But two recent polls show President Barack Obama leading by seven and four points among likely Pennsylvania voters. Neither campaign is running television ads in the commonwealth and, as Ann Romney noted, though four of her sons are on the campaign trail for their dad, not one of them is in Pennsylvania.

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    “I can’t even tell you where they are. Probably Ohio, probably Florida,” she said. “Probably Wisconsin.”

    And therein lie the hotly contested states.

    Ann Romney told Pennsylvania supporters of her husband to do their own voter outreach on the Romney campaign’s behalf.

    She suggested talking to five undecided voters a day,

    “Find an independent that voted for Barack Obama last time or find a Democrat that voted for Barack Obama last time and say, ‘How have the last four years been? You want more of the same? Go ahead. You want something different? A better, more prosperous future? Vote for Mitt Romney,’ ” she said.

    Hundreds attended the rally at Elizabethtown College. Ann Romney’s visit comes a week after that of Jill Biden, the vice president’s wife, who touched down in seven cities in central and eastern Pennsylvania.

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