SHJ: At the Beacon, you'll be a block away from one of the poorest neighborhoods in this city. Spartanburg has a high concentration of public housing, and many people here are born into poverty, live their lives in poverty, and die in poverty. What specific things would you do help these families break that cycle?

ROMNEY: "The most important single action a society can take to break the cycle of poverty, is to encourage marriage before babies. A child that is born to a single parent is four times more likely to be raised in poverty. We also need to improve our schools, so our kids - particularly in the inner-city - are given the skills they need for the jobs of today and tomorrow. Increasingly, our urban schools, and often those with minority populations, are failing our kids badly. The civil rights issue of our generation is the failure of inner-city schools to provide minority kids with the educational skills they deserve."

At a campaign lunch in Greenville and the reception in Columbia, Ann Romney talks about other things, of course, touting her husband's record on health care while governor and his role in turning around the scandal-plagued Salt Lake City Winter Olympics in 2002.

Still, the crowd becomes hushed and attentive as she talks — sometimes matter-of-factly, sometimes with a catch in her voice — about how he stood by her during the worst days of her struggle with MS. She says it's taught her that everyone carries "a bag of rocks" — some personal challenge or tragedy — even if others can't see it.

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