Robin Abcarian

The tenure of an openly gay spokesman for Mitt Romney's campaign lasted less than two weeks.

On April 19, Romney's campaign announced it had hired Richard Grenell, 45, as its foreign policy spokesman. On Tuesday, Grenell tendered his resignation, citing a "hyperpartisan discussion of personal issues that sometimes comes from being on a presidential campaign."

SAN TAN VALLEY, Ariz. -- As he walked into the cafeteria of Walker Butte Elementary School to help recruit local citizens as law enforcement volunteers, the recently outed sheriff of Pinal County got an immensely warm welcome. Men shook his hand. Women embraced and kissed him.

Paul Babeu did not seem to be a man whose career and political aspirations were crumbling, as some have claimed. Except for his raggedy voice, he seemed about as comfortable and upbeat as could be expected of a man who had just faced the world to admit publicly for the first time that he was gay, while denying he had threatened his former lover, a Mexican national, with deportation.

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. — Flanked by four young grandchildren, a buoyant-looking Mitt Romney strode across the tarmac here early Saturday afternoon, creating a perfectly posed American family tableau on the day that Nevadans voted for their choices to be the Republican presidential nominee.

PALMYRA, N.Y. -- Don and Lee Preston, who teach at an international school near Shanghai, were sitting under a gaily striped tent on a recent Saturday in a field near the birthplace of the Mormon prophet Joseph Smith, helping entertain a group of Mormon teenagers.

The Prestons could have gone home to Arizona for their vacation -- "but we wanted to do something more meaningful with our summer than eating in restaurants and seeing movies," said Lee, 43.