CHARLOTTE, N.C. — For a grocery clerk at my local market, it was not about political strategies or poll numbers. As I judged the fish selection, he leaned across the counter and asked, “Why didn’t he fight?” I didn’t have to ask what he meant. He knows I cover politics, and I knew he was talking about President Obama’s lackluster performance in his first debate with GOP challenger Mitt Romney.

When does testiness cross over into anger? Whatever you want to call it, Ann Romney is showing the signs. When she takes her husband’s conservative critics to task on Radio Iowa with: “Stop it. This is hard. You want to try it? Get in the ring.” When she leans into an NBC reporter and says: “There’s going to be no more tax releases given.” When she tells Latino voters they would vote Republican if only “they could just get past some of their biases.”

But her persona is not “angry white woman.” It’s more the fighting helpmate for Mitt Romney, her tough words and emotional delivery adding fire to a candidate and a campaign that could use it.

Imagine the reaction if the current first lady went off like that on her husband’s detractors and lectured Americans on what they should realize and when,

CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Michelle Obama is as comfortable talking about policy as the warm cuddly stuff, as she proved once again in a phone conversation with several women journalists Tuesday afternoon.

Four years ago, her speech in Denver introduced her family to the nation and the nation liked what it saw. She is one of team Obama’s most popular members and powerful assets, so a lot is riding on her Tuesday night prime-time address.

What is she going to talk about? “My job tonight is just going to be to remind people of who my husband is,” the first lady said. “Even though he’s a very likable president, he has been the president, and he’s had a very serious role and there are few times when he can really let his hair down. … Sometimes it’s important for people to remember who this man is in terms of his values and his convictions and his character.”

Ann Romney, conventional wisdom says, is her husband’s not-so-secret weapon. Well, yes and no. She humanizes him is the standard line and, wearing a lovely red outfit in her moment on the Republican convention stage on Tuesday, she was a smiling vision of warmth. But though she strings words together more fluently than the GOP presidential nominee, the words themselves — and often the tone — reinforce the idea that she and Mitt Romney were made for each other.

Republicans, including “just joking” about birth certificates Mitt Romney, love to chide President Obama about his alleged foreign roots, but couldn’t stop getting misty-eyed over their hard-working immigrant forebears. Government programs equal the devil, but hey, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R), didn’t I hear you mention the G.I. Bill that helped your dad attend college? Ann Romney declared that all you need is love, but then Christie – him, again – said respect, not love is the answer.

That’s the way it went when the Republican National Convention finally revved up in Tampa on Tuesday night after a storm delay. It didn’t seem as though these folks talked among themselves, much less to Americans who may disagree with them politically, but still believe in America as a land of promise and opportunity.