Another new staple of his stump speech: the stories of three Americans whose deaths touched Romney. The candidate spent time each day telling audiences about helping write a will for a 14-year-old with leukemia, as well as the death of a disabled friend.

"I know something about great human beings in this country," he said. "It's that that gives me the confidence that our future will be so bright, because I've seen how Americans respond to challenge, and even to tragedy."

“It’s not easy for Billy to get around quadriplegic. . . . He can’t move, of course, his arms and his legs, and he can barely speak, and they brought him forward, a big crowd around him, very hot,” Romney said. “I reached down and I put my hand on Billy’s shoulder and I whispered into his ear. I said, ‘Billy, God bless you. I love ya.’ And he whispered right back to me — and I couldn’t quite hear what he said. He tried to speak loud enough for me to hear. He died the next day.”

“It was clear he was not going to make it,” Romney said. “I went into his room one night when he was in bed, and he asked me a very difficult question. He said, ‘Mitt, what’s next?’ He called me ‘Brother Romney.’ ‘What’s next?’ And I talked to him about what I believe is next.”

A few days later, when David was in the hospital, he called Romney.

“I was at work and he said, ‘Can you come by?’ And he said, ‘You went to law school, right?’ ”

Romney told him that he had. “He said, ‘Could you come by and write my will for me?’ ” Romney recalled. “So I went to David’s bedside and got a piece of legal paper, made it look very official. And then David proceeded to tell me what he wanted to give his friends. Talked about his fishing rod, and who would get that. He talked about his skateboard, who’d get that. And his rifle — that went to his brother.”

“I’ve seen the character of a young man like David,” Romney continued. “He had his eyes wide open. There’s a saying: Clear eyes, full heart, can’t lose. David couldn’t lose. I loved that young man.”

a woman from Oklahoma the candidate met at the Republican convention. Horton's husband was killed in Afghanistan days before the 10th anniversary of 9/11, and his funeral was protested by members of the Westboro Baptist Church.

"They came to the funeral of her husband, and she was asked, 'What do you think of that?' And this is the quote. She said this: 'Chris died for them to be able to protest,'" Romney said.