I asked why he had wanted to walk the trail by himself in 2004.
The Scotland Yard inspector on his trail is himself a battle-scarred veteran.
Next week, Mr. Romney will go to Tampa, Fla., to accept the Republican nomination for president, after months on the campaign trail casting himself as Mr. Fix-it, a turnaround specialist whose business experience can revive a struggling economy.
On the campaign trail, offering himself as a "Reformer with Results", he perks up when he discusses education reform and tax cuts in Texas, yet rarely mentions the environment.
More than 1,000 calls alone went out from the home of Bart and Jody Pals in Mason City, who on Wednesday expressed the kind of optimism that Mr. Romney has tried to embody on the trail, modeling himself after President Ronald Reagan.
But one figure, who carries influence with what may turn out to be a critical constituency of moderate Republicans, independents and conservative Democrats, has been noticeably absent from the trail: Mr. Lugar himself, who appeared here the other day at a rededication of a building named for him but who has not turned up at events on behalf of Mr. Mourdock.
He made certain to underscore that bin Laden followed the trail he himself blazed.
It is difficult enough to bring a person to life on film, but it is especially hard when that person has tried to destroy any biographical trail of himself.
John Kerry, who also attended the right schools and had affected a Boston Brahmin demeanor, married into a vast fortune and finds himself struggling on the campaign trail to redefine himself as a man of the masses.
On the campaign trail, Mr. Gingrich calls himself the "conservative alternative to Mitt Romney".
