Ann Romney on 2016: ‘We’re Not Doing That Again’

ABC News(WASHINGTON) — There has been some renewed speculation recently that Mitt Romney might make a third go of it and run for president again in 2016. He has even left the door open, although just a tiny bit. But his wife of 45 years keeps slamming it shut.

“No,” Ann Romney told ABC News, saying she has “moved on.”

“We’re not doing that again,” she said. “It’s a no,” adding that when friends, family and former aides urge them to give it one more go, she says it’s “kind of cute.”

Romney said her “least political son,” Ben, called her recently and even he wasn’t sure.

“He [says], ‘Mom are you guys thinking about running again. I’m starting to read things,” she said, laughing. “I [said], ‘Ben, no. You have to ask me that question; no because even our own children are reading all of this and they’re thinking, ‘Are you thinking about it? And it’s just, it is a lot of talk.”

The former Massachusetts governor, 67, has been vague on the topic, telling the New York Times in September, “We’ll see what happens.”

Ann Romney, 65, may have been through two bruising presidential campaigns, but her toughest battle has been the one she has fought with multiple sclerosis, which she was diagnosed with in 1998. She has been in remission for more than a decade, but has acknowledged some tough days on the campaign trail.

This week, she launched the Ann Romney Center for Neurological Disorders at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston.

She joined ABC News, along with her physician and co-director of the center, Dr. Howard Weiner, to discuss the breakthroughs, treatments and even cures possible for not only MS, but ALS (or Lou Gehrig’s disease), Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s and brain tumors.

Romney says they can “unlock a lot more mysteries in the brain” through their work and be able to “collaborate across the country and across the world.”

Dr. Weiner didn’t hesitate when asked whether it’s possible to cure these diseases with research, saying, definitively, “one day we’ll get to a cure,” adding he is confident their research will also develop vaccines for such diseases.

“First we have to get our treatments, understand the disease better, get treatments that slow the disease or stop the progression, and then one day we go for a cure,” Weiner said, adding they aren’t sure about a timeline for cures, but said he expects treatment for Alzheimer’s, ALS, and certain kinds of brain tumors.

And once they get those treatments, he said, “we’re on our way.”

At the launch of the center this week, the Romneys were joined by family friends, and also at least one possible 2016 candidate, Chris Christie. Ann Romney called the New Jersey governor a friend and said there would be plenty of choices when it comes time for presidential picking. But she did name some female Republicans she has her eye on, including New Hampshire Sen. Kelly Ayotte, South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley and New Mexico Gov. Susanna Martinez.

Mitt Romney wrote an open love letter to his wife earlier this week marking the opening of the center. In the letter, he praised his wife saying, “From one of the wounded, you have become one of the warriors.”

Ann Romney said her response was to “burst into tears” because it “really touched my heart.”

“I mean he was with me when I was the wounded,” Romney recalled. “Now I’m in a different place and I now can be the warrior for those that are suffering and going through what I went through because I know what it feels like when you are so depressed and you feel hopeless is to know that it’s OK. I want to be able to be that voice of hope for people.”

Follow @ABCNewsRadio
Copyright 2014 ABC News Radio