Hilary Rosen should have stayed at home — at least on Thursday, when she did Republicans a big favor by saying that Ann Romney has "never worked a day in her life."

That offended millions of women, gave Ann Romney a platform to defend stay-at-home moms, and put the attention on Mitt Romney's marriage and family, where he shines. (Although, on that 12-hour drive to Canada, Seamus wished he had been a stay-at-home dog.)

What a reversal. When dawn broke Thursday, Mitt was scrambling to deal with his women problem. Without Rosen's assist, Mitt probably would have said something like "I like ladies" on the stump.

Rosen's remark notwithstanding, Romney does have a problem with women, driven in part by the positions he's taken and in part by the personality he's displayed. But Romney's bigger problem is that he's losing the battle to define himself.

The narrative about Romney is hardening. No matter what Mr. Etch A Sketch does with Romney's message, Romney's image is getting harder to change.

We know by now what Team Obama wants the voters to think about Romney: He's a rich, privileged, secretive, awkward, arrogant, unfeeling, flip-flopping, out-of-touch super-elite millionaire who got richer by making Americans poorer.

We can surmise what Team Romney wants you to think of Romney: He's an upstanding, hardworking, dynamic, enterprising, successful straight arrow of a guy who builds great teams and gets things done for the causes he cares about — country, community, faith, family, friends and, yes, building strong companies and making money, too.

These are the competing narratives.

The Obama battle plan is predictable. He's going to keep pounding the evidence that supports his image of Romney all the way to November.

The Romney role is much harder. He's got to embody his image of himself — in his policies, in his activities and in what he says and the way he says it.

His cause was not advanced with a Washington Post story this past week that said Romney "has taken advantage of an obscure exception in federal ethics laws to avoid disclosing the nature and extent of his holdings."

There can be only one reason for Romney not to disclose; it would harm his chances of becoming president. He doesn't want people reviewing the investments and asking, "Is there any sign in here at all of a guy who cares about his country?"

The explanation that Romney didn't choose the investments won't help. If his money is in, he's in. And the explanation that Bain refused to release the information is worse. If he can't win a battle with his buddies at Bain, how can he take on China?

This story feeds the Obama image of Romney.

Separately, Philip Rucker, who covers the Romney campaign for The Washington Post, wrote an article this past week about very positive stories about Romney that are not widely known — stories of his rescuing people on a lake after their boat capsized, his shutting down the Bain offices to deploy firm members to find the missing daughter of a Bain partner, or his volunteering time as a lay pastor of his Mormon congregation to help the sick and the unemployed.

Of course, these stories are gold for the Romney image of Romney. Why aren't they better-known? Chief campaign strategist Stuart Stevens said: "People care about what you're going to do for them. ... How off-putting is it when you meet someone for the first time and they pull out their family pictures and say, 'Let me tell you about my trip to the Grand Canyon'? No, you talk about mutual interests."

This is the guy in charge of Romney's strategy? I haven't felt so confident since I saw that the opposing team at my son's basketball game was five short kids and no coach.

First of all, Romney doesn't have to tell all the stories about Romney; the campaign just needs to make sure they're well-known. Second, you can't just start talking about "mutual interests." That's secondary. The first step in persuasion is to get people to listen, and you get people to listen by getting them to like you — at least a little. Hence, perhaps, a little story?

Of course Mitt can't say, "Did I tell you about the time I foiled a kidnapping?" But he's got to tell some stories that reveal the personality that Ann Romney tells us is there so people can see him as the type of guy who would help an unemployed worker feed his family.

Empathy on the stump is not Mitt's first gift. Everybody knows that, so the bar is low. But he at least has to try. If he can't do that, then at least some of the Team Obama image of him has a ring of truth.

Tom Rosshirt was a national security speechwriter for President Bill Clinton and a foreign affairs spokesman for Vice President Al Gore. Email him at [email protected]. To find out more about Tom Rosshirt and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate Web page at www.creators.com.