The Democrats are heavily pushing the message that the Republican Party is an anti-female organisation. On Wednesday Team Obama emailed supporters the top five reasons why they must fight to ensure that the White House remains a Republican free zone. Number 1 fact was: “Romney is the most radically anti-women candidate in a generation”.

This is a big problem for Mitt as ‘soccer moms make up a key par of the crucial independent voters block. The polarising nature of the Republican primary contest – which focused on abortion, contraception and visceral anger – gave the ‘Republicans are anti-women’ message traction.

All was going well until a Democratic operative said on CNN that Mitt Romney’s wife, Ann, “had never worked a day in her life”.

Ann Romney – who has so far been quiet during her husbands pursuit of the Presidency – joined Twitter to respond.

I made a choice to stay home and raise five boys. Believe me, it was hard work.

— Ann Romney (@AnnDRomney) April 12, 2012

Ann Romney’s tweet shows the power of Twitter and its impact on the 2012 Presidential election, which has already been dubbed the Twitter election.

s Her words feel authentic because there is no media filter between Ann and me. What she says is instinctively true, and is a statement a lot of ‘soccer moms’ will agree with.

Two days ago Ann Romney was politically insignificant, now she is part of the election. She could become the voice for women who may not earn as much money as their male partners, but bring a hell of a lot of value to the relationship.

By implication those who dismiss what Ann Romney does are dismissing the contribution of millions of women. It does not matter that Team Obama has rejected the CNN comments, Ann Romney now has a platform.  When she uses it to say that Mitt “routinely assures her that her job is more important than his” the Democrats number one attack is blunted.  The tweet could be a game changer.

Nick Denys is @betapolitics on Twitter.