The New York Times reports:
Jim Wilson, the peripatetic, profane, pipe-smoking volunteer for Mitt Romney whose pickup truck was destroyed in a fire last week, has a new set of wheels, donated by the campaign to which he has devoted a year of his life.
Mr. Romney himself presented Mr. Wilson, a 70-year-old Virginian, with a replacement vehicle during an event in Sterling, Va., on Wednesday, ensuring that Mr. Wilson can keep popping up at campaign stops in a truck festooned with dozens of giant “Romney for President” posters and stickers.
The campaign covered the $13,900 cost of the truck, a 2003 Chevy Silverado that is such a vast improvement over Mr. Wilson’s previous vehicle, he said in an interview, “that I feel guilty smoking in it. It’s so clean I felt I had to take my shoes off before getting in.”
Mr. Wilson, an anti-Obama Republican and former life insurance salesman, had devoted himself with the single-mindedness of a college-age groupie to following Mr. Romney around the country in a beat-up 1998 GMC, logging 40,000 miles, visiting 15 states and attending 150 campaign events.
A classy gesture from the campaign — and I have to say, it’s really impressive that Wilson has gone to a 150 campaign events, considering how little stump speeches change from event to event.