Mary Altaffer / AP

Mitt Romney, right, shakes hands with his newly announced vice presidential running mate, Wisconsin Rep. Paul Ryan, after Ryan addressed the crowd Saturday, Aug. 11, 2012 in Norfolk, Va.

This article is based on reporting by NBC’s Carrie Dann, Garrett Haake, Alex Moe, Jamie Novogrod, and Andrew Rafferty. It was written by Dann.

At 11:11 pm on Friday night, political journalists all over America read the subject line of their latest email, blinked, and asked aloud, "Where's Paul Ryan right now?"

There was exactly one person standing on the Republican congressman’s driveway in Janesville, Wisc.

NBC reporter Alex Moe, who had spent 15 days shadowing the onetime dark horse to be Mitt Romney's vice presidential pick, was preparing to leave Ryan's neighborhood for the night when the email blast thundered into her inbox: "MITT ROMNEY ANNOUNCES VICE PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE IN NORFOLK SATURDAY."

The venue for the announcement, according to the press release: the USS Wisconsin. Ryan's home state.

Until a few days prior, speculation for the VP choice had centered around Ohio's Sen. Rob Portman and former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty. But Portman had just given remarks at the opening ceremony for a charity bicycling tournament,  and NBC reporter Andrew Rafferty had seen him return to his hotel in Columbus less than an hour earlier.

Moments before, Pawlenty had just wrapped up a lengthy fundraiser in Manchester, N.H., and NBC’s Jamie Novogrod was at that moment driving behind the black hatchback whisking the governor and his wife back to the Hilton Garden Inn where they were checked in.

Ryan was the question mark.

So, at 11:15 pm, Moe marched up to the side door of Ryan's Wisconsin home -- where the lights hadn't yet been turned off for the night -- and gave a good hard knock.  And then another one.

No answer.

When Pawlenty got the call he wouldn’t be the pick
Three days earlier, Tim Pawlenty woke up to a beautiful vista, and the memory of some disappointing news from the night before.

In Aspen, Colo., for a closed-door conference of national security luminaries, Pawlenty had spent the better part of a nervous week in the shadow of the Maroon Bells peaks, enduring radio silence from Boston.

It was Monday night when he got the call from Mitt Romney and learned that, for the second time in four years, he'd been passed over for the second-in-command job. When NBC reporter Carrie Dann greeted him on the Aspen Institute campus the following morning, he betrayed no disappointment, but he could no longer afford to be very forthcoming about the details of his schedule during the upcoming week.

Pawlenty's hurried manner on the way into breakfast left the reporter's intuition tingling over his halting answers to questions that had previously been met with teasing and tolerance. "Just... my schedule hasn't changed," he told her.

It hadn't. Which meant that he'd need a poker face to field questions from Dann and other reporters for another grueling four days.

All seemed normal in Norfolk
The story was classic Stu Stevens: too unbelievable to be anything but true.

Top Romney strategist Stuart Stevens was telling reporters in the Norfolk Marriott bar a tale about becoming seriously ill while working in Albania and subsequently having to be airlifted to a hospital in Zurich for treatment. By 11:00 pm Friday night, the press corps had long given up on trying to bait Stevens into giving something away about the vice presidential selection process, and war stories abounded instead. The mood was too casual, it seemed, for anything out of the ordinary to be going on.

After Stevens wrapped up the tale, NBC reporter Garrett Haake decided to call it a night early, ready to rest up for the launch of Romney's bus tour the following day. Teeth brushed, he flipped through his emails one last time before bed.

Then he saw the campaign’s advisory for its vice presidential selection.

An hour later, he would be standing on a pier in the middle of the night, staring in disbelief at the waves below.

Portman wouldn’t be the guy, either
Rob Portman missed the call.

The Ohio senator was giving remarks at Friday night's opening ceremonies for  Pelotonia, a charity bike ride to raise money for cancer research, when the phone rang around 7:30 pm. Mitt Romney was on the line, but Portman couldn't pick up.

Two hours later, Rafferty spotted Portman in the lobby of the Columbus Hyatt, clad in a bright red Ohio State Buckeyes polo.  By then, Portman had spoken with the GOP nominee, and he knew that he would be returning to Capitol Hill instead of the White House after all.

When the 11:00 pm announcement came that Romney would name his running mate the following day, it was clear to Rafferty that Portman couldn't be the guy. Was the charity bike tour an elaborate ruse? Was the senator being whisked to a secret location in an SUV, ushered thru hidden loading docks under the dark of night? 

It couldn't be. But he waited in the lobby until 4:00 am, just to make sure the Ohio pol didn't pull the fast one of a lifetime.

Chasing (and then losing) Pawlenty
Feeling just a few miles per hour short of a car chase, NBC's Jamie Novogrod was following a black Volvo carrying Tim Pawlenty and his wife Mary back to Manchester. The couple had attended two fundraisers on Romney's behalf that Friday evening, and reporters had waited in torrential rain to spot the couple's comings and goings.  The friend driving the former Minnesota governor had a New Englander's lead foot, and the reporter following at a safe distance strained to keep sight of the car.

Pawlenty's star had seemed to be dimming in recent days. So when Jamie got the call from a colleague that the pick was set to be announced the following morning, it seemed obvious that the governor couldn't possibly be “the guy” -- after all, he had a full slate of New Hampshire events the following day, with no hint of an abrupt departure for Norfolk.

At the Manchester exit off the highway, his view of the Volvo obstructed in the wet weather, Novogrod spotted too late the car's tail lights disappearing into the night several hundred yards down the road. 

"I've lost him," Novogrod told Dann, who was awaiting Pawlenty at his hotel. "You're on your own."

Blackberry down
On the air and on the web, NBC's reporting unfolded with few hiccups.

But behind the scenes, there was some sprinting that would have impressed the U.S. Olympic team, and at least one electronic casualty.

In Norfolk, Haake rushed down to the site of the USS Wisconsin, the site of the following morning's event that just so happened to bear the name of Ryan's home state.

Sockless and juggling camera equipment, he  heard the request over his cell phone's speakerphone to set up a liveshot of the event site.

Thud.

He dropped his blackberry, speaker blaring, to the wooden pier where it bounced once, twice, three times, over the edge into the bay.

Splash. It was gone.

By then, though, Haake already had some peace of mind. NBC had confirmed Ryan was the pick.

The pieces fall into place
At 12:01 am Saturday morning, after intense phone collaboration between reporters in the field, top correspondents, and seasoned producers, NBC News reported three Romney sources indicating that Ryan had been selected for the VP slot.

Throughout the network's team, the pieces had fallen into place.

Just after midnight, when he returned to his hotel, Pawlenty confirmed to Dann and other reporters waiting for him there that he wouldn't be traveling to Norfolk the following day. He wouldn't say who the pick was, but it was clear there was no chance he was the one. "I didn't enter this thinking I was going to be the vice presidential candidate," he said. "So I'm not disappointed."

Portman was safely in his hotel room. Shrugging a phone to each shoulder -- one for a network conference call and one for GOP sources -- NBC's reporters ruled out other also-rans: Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell, Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, and others.

Where was Ryan?
None of them was "the guy."  But then ... where WAS "the guy?"

Moe, now accompanied by an NBC satellite truck and crew, was still at the Wisconsin congressman's house. She'd spoken to Ryan earlier that day and accompanied him home from a memorial service for victims of the Sikh temple shooting in his district. Arriving home at around 2:00 pm ET, Ryan had sheepishly admitted that he'd forgotten his keys and trekked into the backyard to dig around for a spare.

That was the last time anyone in the press saw the Wisconsin congressman until he appeared in Norfolk as a vice presidential nominee.

Because after a week of smoke and mirrors to keep secret the most-sought-after answer in American politics, he did just about the simplest thing in the world.

Paul Ryan walked casually into his backyard -- and kept walking. Out of reporters' sight, navigating through a familiar forest, he emerged to a car waiting to take him to the airport.

And then to Norfolk.

WATERFORD, Mich. -- Former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty laughed off "lame" questions Thursday about whether he'd be interested in a cabinet position in a Mitt Romney administration if he isn't selected as the GOP's vice presidential candidate.

"It would be presumptuous and premature for people to be talking about positions down the road," he told reporters at a cabinetry store outside of Detroit, poking at the press for the pun on "cabinets."

"And for me I'm just happy to help [Gov. Romney] as a volunteer. I'm happy to be working in the private sector and on other projects, so beyond that I don't have any plans," he added.

Pawlenty, who is widely discussed as being a possible partner for Romney on the GOP ticket, appeared in eastern Michigan as part of a fundraising tour on the GOP nominee's behalf. As a former governor who no longer serves in elected office or has a professional post other than his membership on a bevy of business boards, he would be a prime candidate for a job in Romney's administration should he be passed over for the No. 2 slot.

In addition to a peppering of questions from reporters eager to match his schedule with a possible secret veep rollout, he fielded inquiries about the Romney campaign's new television advertisements.

Asked about a new ad that links President Obama's contraception coverage policy with a "war on religion," Pawlenty pointed to Romney's past comment that available contraceptives are "working just fine."

"I think Gov. Romney said it best in one of the televised debates when he said contraceptives are working fine and we should leave them alone," he said, referencing  January debate in New Hampshire. "And to his point on religious liberties he was referring to the fact that the Obama administration has imposed new limitations on the exercise of religion and has offended the many leaders of the Catholic church and other faith leaders in that regard."

Touring the cabinetry facility with owners Rik and Mike Kowall, the former Minnesota governor munched on donuts and chatted about the impact of economic uncertainty on small businesses.

"Who decides what music you play?" he joked with one employee as Dire Straits' hit "Money for Nothing" blared in the workroom.

Pawlenty is expected to travel to New Hampshire for a busy slate of public events on Saturday.

CARY, NC -- Fresh from lunch at Chick-Fil-A, former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty said that officials' public objections to the Christian-owned fast food chain are "chilling."

"Now you have the police power of government intimidating and threatening people, being used to intimidate and threaten people, based on their free speech rights and their religious views," Pawlenty said Saturday of city officials' objections to president Dan Cathy's public disavowal of gay marriage.  "I mean it’s chilling.  I mean it’s stunning, it is jaw-dropping.  And so I think strong people who see this need to stand up and say no we don’t do that in the United States."

Several elected officials, including the mayor of Boston, have said that they will discourage the opening of new Chick-Fil-A franchises.

Pawlenty noted said that he had sampled Chick-Fil-A's products for lunch earlier Saturday. "It was awesome," he said of the chicken strips and waffle fries he ordered.

The former Minnesota governor's comments came in response to a question from roundtable participant Kristine Godeaux of Cary. 

"I was just really wishing that someone in the Republican Party would have stepped forward," Godeaux said of the "intimidation" she felt from pro-gay marriage advocates over the issue. "There just seems to be this real lack of leadership and I’m just hopeful and praying that if Gov. Romney does win the election that we’ll be allowed to have civil debate and disagree with each other without feeling threatened or penalized."

Despite the ongoing summer Olympics, recreational hockey player Pawlenty had winter sports on the brain. He took time after the "sports parents" roundtable at the Polar Ice House skating venue to skate a few laps around the rink.

Pawlenty wasn't the only politician supporting Chick-Fil-A.

Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin on Friday posted on Facebook two pictures of a visit to a Chick-Fil-A in The Woodlands, Tex., where she supported insurgent conservative U.S. Senate candidate Ted Cruz. She posted the comment, "Stopped by Chick-fil-A in The Woodlands to support a great business."

Former Gov. Tim Pawlenty discusses the search for Mitt Romney's running mate and the importance of that person being a supplement to presidential candidate's strengths or weaknesses.

As Mitt Romney approaches his announcement of a running mate, a series of clues about whom he might pick continue to seep into the media.

The presumptive Republican presidential nominee's campaign confirmed, per NBC's Garrett Haake, that New Hampshire Sen. Kelly Ayotte (R) would meet with Romney and march with him at a Fourth of July parade tomorrow in Wolfeboro, N.H.

Brian Snyder / Reuters

New Hampshire Sen. Kelly Ayotte plans to meet with presumptive GOP nominee Romney and march with him at a Fourth of July parade in Wolfeboro, N.H.

Ayotte is one of several rumored short-listers who have appeared with Romney on the campaign trail; these ventures have been interpreted as informal tryouts for potential GOP tickets. A slew of other vice presidential hopefuls joined Romney on his bus tour through the Midwest last month.

Meanwhile, this morning on CNBC, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie seemed to warm to the idea of serving as Romney's pick for a vice president.

"I love being governor of New Jersey, you can tell," Christie said. "But the fact is, if Gov. Romney picks up the phone and calls, you have to answer the call and listen at least."

Romney himself has said little about the vetting process since being forced to acknowledge in June that his campaign was evaluating Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, among other candidates, for the VP nod.

The list of other top-tier candidates is considered to include Ohio Sen. Rob Portman (R) and former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty (R).

Another governor long rumored to be among favorites for the vice presidential nod is Bob McDonnell of Virginia. It might be difficult for him to serve as Romney's running mate, though, in his new role, announced Monday, as chairman of the platform committee at this summer's Republican National Convention.

GRAND RAPIDS, MI -- Some of Mitt Romney's most deep-pocketed donors will flock to Utah for an exclusive gathering this weekend featuring top Republican political figures and strategists.

More than 100 of the GOP's top fundraisers and bundlers will attend the "First National Romney Victory Leadership Retreat," a weekend-long retreat intended to rally, educate and reward the men and women who have been the primary financial backers of the presumptive nominee's campaign thus far.

The attendees will be treated to presentations, briefing and panel discussions featuring an all-star cast of Republican politicians, including several thought to be among Romney's top vice presidential choices.

Among the possible VP contenders a Romney campaign adviser confirmed would be in attendance are former Govs. Tim Pawlenty (MN) and Jeb Bush (FL), Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal and former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. The GOP's last presidential nominee, Arizona Sen. John McCain, will also attend, according to Republican sources familiar with the event's schedule.

Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell will speak at one of the weekend's two major dinners, according to a McDonnell staffer.

The Washington Post has reported that Sen. John Thune, Rep. Paul Ryan -- two other rumored VP short-listers will attend, as will Republican power-broker Karl Rove. NBC News has not independently confirmed this information.

"All the major players of the party will be there," Dallas businessman Ray Washburne, who will attend the retreat, told NBC News. "Its kind of a reunion of all the people who worked hard on the campaign so far."

Washburne is indicative of the type of Republican rainmaker the Romney campaign intends to woo, and reward, at the retreat. The real estate developer, investor and restauranteur headed up a recent Romney fundraiser in Dallas that brought in $3.6 million for the campaign, and has co-chaired Romney's fundraising effort in the Lone Star state after the first candidate he supported -- Pawlenty -- dropped out of the race.

The invitees are primarily those donors who have raised enough money to qualify as national finance committee members, one Romney adviser said.

"The party is all falling in behind the candidate now, and this is kind of the first kind of anointment of Mitt by everyone," Washburne said.

On Saturday, attendees will be briefed by top Romney campaign officials, including political director Rich Beeson, and the famously media-averse campaign manager Matt Rhodes, on the state of the campaign and strategy going forward. That night they will also attend the second of two dinners with the candidate himself.

Attendees at the weekend-long retreat will at gather at a resort hotel in the mountains surrounding Salt Lake city, not far from where Romney first rose to prominence by running the Salt Lake City Olympics in 2002, and in the state where he still retains a rock star-like political status.

Romney and his guests will be far from the prying eyes of most media. The entire three-day conference is closed to the press, and Romney has no public events in Utah to draw reporters here otherwise. His campaign has refused most official requests for comment on the conference, including several made for this report.

When the conference concludes at the end of the weekend, the campaign will continue with one major question -- likely to be discussed all weekend -- that will remain unanswered: Was the vice presidential nominee among those in attendance?

"That's all anybody wants to know," Washburne said.

NBC's Alex Moe contributed.

GREENSBORO, N.C. -- Over the past month, Tim Pawlenty's response to questions gauging his interest in being chosen as vice president have ranged from "take my name off the list" to "anybody would be honored to serve if asked."

But speaking to reporters on Saturday after an impassioned address at the North Carolina Republican Convention, the former presidential candidate maintained he is not sending mixed messages.

"I think I can help [Romney] in other ways like this, being a volunteer for his campaign.  But obviously anybody would be honored if asked," Pawlenty said. "But, beyond that, I don't think those two things are inconsistent.  I'm trying to signal that I could best serve him in a different way, but anybody would be honored to serve if asked."

Speaking to more than 1,000 Republicans here in an important swing state, the former Minnesota governor and national co-chair of the Romney campaign showed why he has established himself as one of the GOP nominee's top surrogates.  He drew high praise for his speech urging conservatives to unite in opposition to President Barack Obama.  Many in the crowd said he they found Pawlenty to be an even more impressive speaker than Donald Trump, who took the stage the night before.

Pawlenty acknowledged that he has been able to find a level of comfort now that he had not been able to as a candidate.  Asked what accounted for the change, he said, "I don't know the answer to that, other than that I speak from the heart now, I don't particularly use a script now other than a few notes. I don't have a bunch of handlers telling me what to do and I just let it fly."

He fired up the North Carolina crowd talking about their importance as a swing state, throwing in much of the same speech he used while a candidate, but mixing it with praise for Romney's vision for America.  His message was that it was time for conservatives to come together.

"If we're going to win as a conservative movement, we got to recognize that we're a team," Pawlenty said. "And so when the Vikings or the Hurricanes and other teams go out and practice with each other as teammates, they don't go out and smash each other in the boards or knock each other out when they're practicing as teammates, do they?"

He added, "It's important that we recognize the coalition of conservatives consists of economic conservatives, and social conservatives and tea party conservatives and libertarian conservatives and security and defense conservatives and more.  And no one group can win the swing states or most states by themselves."

One of those team members includes Trump, who in his address the night before again brought up questions about the president's place of birth.  It's the reason some feel the business mogul overshadowed Romney last Tuesday when they held a fundraiser together -- the same day the former Massachusetts governor secured the 1,144 delegates to earn the Republican nomination.

"Donald Trump is trying to do what he can to advance the cause to try to get Mitt Romney elected president. ... So he's a somebody who can get attention, who can bring perspective to issues.  But also, he's part of team and a team needs to work together.  And that doesn't mean that everybody agrees on every issue," Pawlenty said.