Friday night was a night of contrasting ladies. It was a softer cap to a week during which no hard substance could distract political reporters from what they really wanted to know about – first-quarter reports on Money, Money, Money, Money, Money. The anticipated First Lady-in-waiting event of the night was the buzzed-about interview 20/20 was airing between Judith Giuliani and Barbara Walters. To many it seemed like an odd move for the Giuliani camp. The former Judi Nathan isn’t exactly the former New York City mayor’s best asset. Quite the contrary: She’s a problem. How do you solve a problem like Judy? Even Rudy fans, like the New York Sun’s Ryan Sager, have already asked publicly. Around the same time Friday night, something a lot more predictable was going on at D.C.’s Renaissance hotel: Ann Romney, wife of the former Republican governor of Massachusetts, was speaking to a group of God-loving, Reagan-nostalgic ladies at a gathering of the National Federation of Republican Women. At the same location the next night her husband would be a good sport about his biggest handicaps at the annual Washington Gridiron Club dinner. The only odd thing about the Republican women’s event was the occasional man you’d run into, usually because he escorted his wife to the dinner and fashion show. Ann Romney’s speech wasn’t overtly political. It was the kind of speech that could inspire Oprah Winfrey. (Note to Romney campaign: book this woman on Oprah. Why should Cormac McCarthy and Barack Obama get all that action?). The soft-spoken Mrs. Romney talked movingly about her unexpected and debilitating struggle with multiple sclerosis. In rounding up her story — she seemed to try to keep it as little about her as a story about her personal struggle could possibly be — Mrs. Romney talked about the “turning point” in her illness: It came when she was feeling “useless,” and her husband’s love inspired her to do what she could to get out of bed. Today she’s giving speeches on behalf of (and often introducing) the man she loves — and is even a competitive equestrian. Mrs. Romney’s speech was a very human one — about life’s hardships and joys — and a very feminine one at that, as she fell rather naturally into “mom talk.” She’s an articulate woman, but the type who — while evidently supremely confident in what she is saying — nonetheless appears not entirely comfortable being the one at the podium. Frequently clearing her throat in a graceful, ladylike manner, Mrs. Romney talked about how we’re all here to help one another. It was a good speech from a good person. And from a mother who doesn’t think it takes a village to raise a child, but knows moms and dads are at the heart of our very existence — which is why she takes great, humble pride in the job she did with her sons. Ann Romney cautioned the pastelled women in Washington Friday night: “Sometimes we’re a little too critical, a little too quick to judge.” Listening to Mrs. Romney one could be fairly confident that she’d not feel comfortable reading a piece contrasting her to Rudy Giuliani’s third (Mrs. Romney probably just cringed if she’s reading) wife. But the contrast is there and it’s real. One similar note was hit by both women, though. Mrs. Romney called her speech “Bag of Rocks.” She talked about how, at a dinner focused on “Celebrating American Beauty,” she was confident that everyone, every all-dressed-up-and-pretty-lady there, had her own bag of rocks to carry — her own worries, pain, heartache, challenges. Like so many people do. Mrs. Giuliani, too, talked about rocks. When Barbara Walters asked about the fact that Rudy was married when he and Judi met, Mrs. Giuliani didn’t want to get into details about the exact first encounter (which just begged the New York Post to keep on the story)—and said, “It was a rocky road” on the married-guy fact. And therein lies a key Giuliani-campaign bag of rocks. While neither woman-centered event on Friday was wholly about politics, both of these wives are clearly politically savvy. Mrs. Giuliani, having to know she’s a liability, went on a casual Friday-night-soft-celeb-interview show to try to fix her image. A weird answer or so aside, she probably didn’t hurt the campaign by doing it, as even many politicos hostile to Rudy will admit. At the Republican dinner, Mrs. Romney unsubtly pointed out tables of South Carolina, Iowa, and New Hampshire “friends” — friends, she said, she is grateful to the long campaign process for allowing her to meet. And from the enthusiasm of the ladies at the tables, you sense there’s some genuine affection there. Mrs. Romney brought her speech more overtly to politics in the end, by relaying her view that the principle that “we all have a responsibility to care for each other” relates to our public as well as private lives. Her point remained at that level of generality; her policy specifics only went so far as to praise the Republican women gathered for their advocacy of Jessica’s Laws in every state and their desire for “affordable” health care. She didn’t even explicitly campaign for her husband in her remarks — though there was no question that she was making a positive impression on a room of well-off Republican women on his behalf. Her real message: Politics should be good. “Politics is an extension of caring for people,” she told the group. “I always tell Mitt,” she said, that Washington is like “a group of people traveling around in a rowboat.” There are Democrats and Republicans in the rowboat. And, of course, they’re fighting. Their oars aren’t in the water; instead, the rowers are “banging each other over the head” with them. We have to get the oars in the water before the boat hits the coming waterfall. Judith Giuliani, a registered nurse, could of course relay that message too — but it’s difficult to envision how she could ever be the kind of genuine political asset Ann is to Mitt. A wife isn’t going to make or break a campaign. But she is a reflection of the candidate and his character. And there, in the wives’ stories, the contrasts are no small thing. Even with the occasional she-hates-puppies headlines, Judith Giuliani is already being humanized from the New York tabloid image many, especially in New York, probably have of her. But the contrast of glamour shots of a third wife on her husband’s lap (a husband who was someone else’s husband when she started dating him) with a couple that’s been married for 37 years and still clearly in love is no small thing. It’s no small thing, especially, considering conservatives are being asked to compromise on both the character and policy fronts. Sure, Republicans have had personal issues before — but when they ask us to give in on important policy matters as well, the personal can’t help becoming even more political.