DANVILLE, Ky.—At least one spectator will not have trouble obeying moderator Martha Raddatz’s admonition to remain silent during tonight’s vice presidential debate here at Centre College: former Supreme Court chief justice Fred Vinson.

He died in 1953.

But Vinson, Centre College Class of ’09 (that’s 1909), lives on in a portrait that hangs in his fraternity on campus, Phi Delta Theta. Since his death, frat brothers have taken the painting—affectionately called “Dead Fred”—to every home football game and other big events on campus. Earlier this week, chanting “Dead Fred,” they marched it to the debate hall for tonight’s face-off between Vice President Joe Biden and Rep. Paul Ryan.

“It’s just like he’s another one of the guys in the fraternity,” says senior Oakley Watkins. “He’s another fraternity brother of ours.”

“Getting him to witness different events on Centre College’s campus has been something of a tradition for us,” says sophomore  Steven Sims. “It’s just one of the quirky little things that makes us different.”

Says frat president Beau Sauley: “ ‘Dead Fred’s’ pretty cool.”

When Centre College hosted the 2000 vice presidential debate between Dick Cheney and Sen. Joseph Lieberman, “Dead Fred” was given a wing chair in the audience. This time, he’s perched on a ledge high above the hall.

Frat brothers say he’s not pleased.

“I didn’t hear him say anything,” says Sims, “but he just had a look on his face. You could tell.”

Vinson, a member of a prominent family of Democrats, has the distinction of having served in all three branches of the federal government: elected to three terms in the House, Treasury secretary in President Harry Truman’s administration and nominated to the Supreme Court by Truman, the last chief justice named by a Democrat.

So you think he’d be backing President Obama and Vice President Biden for re-election, right?

He’s not talking.

The self-described Atlanta-based "oppo researcher" who helped broker the release of the secret video that has rocked the Romney campaign got a congratulatory email today from his famous grandfather -- former President Jimmy Carter.

James Carter IV told NBC News in an interview that, starting late last month, he tracked down the source who took the secret Romney video via Twitter --  and then in a series of messages encouraged him to release the full tape to Mother Jones magazine.

After emailing his grandfather the magazine's story about the tape -- under the subject, "Huge campaign news," and calling it "my biggest story yet" -- the former president wrote back at 7:16 am Tuesday: "James: This is extraordinary. Congratulations! Papa."

"I'm proud of my role in being able to track him down," James Carter, 35,  said about the source who took the video. "I'm a partisan Democrat. My motivation is to help Democrats get elected. If there is anything I can find in any race, I try to do that."

Related: Leaked video is the latest hit for Romney

But Carter also confirmed there is a personal side to the backstory of the campaign video: he was especially motivated, he said, because of Romney's frequent attacks on the presidency of his grandfather, including the GOP candidate's comparisons to the "weak" foreign policy of Carter and Barack Obama.

"It gets under my skin -- mostly the weakness on the foreign policy stuff," Carter said. "I just think it's ridiculous. I don’t like criticism of my family."

Carter said he is currently unemployed and has not been paid for his work by the Obama campaign or any other political organization. What motivated him at first was Romney's role at Bain Capital and the controversy over whether the GOP candidate as a businessman had invested in companies that outsourced jobs overseas.

Carter had focused, in particular, on Bain Capital's 1998 investment -- while Romney was still chief executive -- in Global Tech Appliances, a Chinese manufacturing company. Carter was listed as providing "research assistance" to a July 11 story about the investment by David Corn, Mother Jones' Washington bureau chief and an MSNBC contributor.

Related: Romney: Secretly recorded remarks 'not elegantly stated'

Then, in late August, just before the Republican convention, Carter spotted a YouTube link to a brief video clip in which Romney talks about his investment in a Chinese company. The link was posted under the name "Rachel Maddow" but was quickly taken down because the poster had no relationship to the MSNBC host.

The video then reappeared on YouTube under a different account -- "Anne Onymous." Carter said he was fascinated by the video -- and figured there had to be more to Romney's talk.

"It was just weird video to all of a sudden come across,” he said. “It was all very strange and it piqued my curiosity," he said.

Carter Tweeted a link to the video -- and then soon noticed he had a new follower named "Anne Onymous."

"I recognized it" -- and then messaged the follower back, resulting in a series of exchanges in which he encouraged the poster to come forward and give the full video to Corn.

The source who took the video has confirmed to NBC News that it was taken at a May 17 $50,000-a-plate fundraiser at the Boca Raton, Fla., home of private-equity mogul Marc Leder, chief executive of Sun Capital Advisors.

Leder has given $225,000 to Restore Our Future, the pro-Romney Super PAC, in addition to raising money for Romney's presidential campaign. He has also been the subject of controversy after a report in the New York Post last year -- under the headline "Nude Frolic in Tycoon's Pool" -- about a wild party at his Bridgehampton mansion in which, according to the Post's account, "guests cavorted nude in the pool" and scantily clad Russian dancers performed on platforms.

Leder has not responded to a request for comment from NBC News.

LONDON-- Mitt Romney said Wednesday that more restrictive gun laws would likely not have prevented last week's deadly mass shooting at a Colorado Cineplex, and argued that it would take Americans changing their hearts, not their legislation, to prevent similar future attacks.

"Political implications, legal implications are something which will be sorted out down the road," Romney told NBC's Brian Williams during an exclusive interview here in London. "But I don't happen to believe that America needs new gun laws. A lot of what this young man did was clearly against the law. But the fact that it was against the law did not prevent it from happening."

Romney, who enacted an assault weapons ban as governor of Massachusetts (with the support of a Democratic legislature) would not say whether he still believes that weapons like the AR-15 assault rifle used in the Colorado shooting were "instruments of destruction with the sole purpose of hunting down and killing people," as he described them during the bill signing ceremony in 2002.

When Williams followed up later in the interview on the Aurora attack, Romney argued that it would take a change in heart, not laws, to stop future violence.

"Well, this person shouldn't have had any kind of weapons and bombs and other devices and it was illegal for him to have many of those things already. But he had them," Romney said, although the guns used in the shooting were all purchased legally.

"And so we can sometimes hope that just changing the law will make all bad things go away. It won't. Changing the heart of the American people may well be what's essential, to improve the lots of the American people."

NBC News

NBC's Brian Williams interviews Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney in London on Wednesday, July 25, 2012

Romney used the interview to shore up several policy and strategic positions laid out by his campaign in recent weeks, reiterating that he would only release two years of tax returns so as not to provide fodder for Democratic operatives to " twist and distort and to turn in different directions and try and make a big deal out of." He also repeated the major planks of his economic plan, which he says differentiates him from the last Republican president, George W. Bush.

Williams also asked the candidate about controversial comments on the front page of a British newspaper, reportedly given by an unnamed Romney adviser, who called President Barack Obama a "novice" in foreign affairs, and said the Democrat did not fully value the "Anglo-Saxon" nature of the relationship between the United States and the United Kingdom.

“We are part of an Anglo-Saxon heritage, and he feels that the special relationship is special. The White House didn’t fully appreciate the shared history we have,” the adviser is quoted telling the Daily Telegraph.

Earlier today, Romney spokesperson Andrea Saul flatly denied the comments came from anyone inside the Romney camp, or that those views were shared by the former Massachusetts governor. Romney said he was generally "not enthusiastic" about adopting the comments of unnamed advisers in newspaper stories, and pointed out he gets "advice" every day along rope lines and on the street.

“But I can tell you that we have a very special relationship between the United States and Great Britain," Romney said. "It goes back to our very beginnings, cultural … and historical. But I also believe the president understands that. So I don't know agree with whoever that advisor might be. But do agree that we have a very common bond between ourselves and Great Britain."

When it comes to selecting a vice presidential nominee to join him on the Republican ticket, Romney told Williams he has still not made a final decision, and confirmed that he would not be announcing his pick until at least next week, after he returns from his week-long trip abroad.

"While I'm overseas, I'm not gonna announce my vice presidential running mate. But when the decision is made, I'll make that announcement. It's not made yet," Romney said. "I can't tell you when it's gonna be. That's … that's something which we'll decide down the road."

This visit was timed to coincide with the opening ceremonies of the 2012 Olympics, where Ann Romney’s horse, Rafalca, is competing in the equestrian sport of dressage. Will the presumptive GOP nominee be cheering it on?

"I have to tell you, this is Ann's sport. I'm not even sure which day the sport goes on," Romney said. "She will get the chance to see it, I will not be watching  the event.  I hope her horse does well.  But just the honor of being here and representing our country and seeing the other Olympians is something which I'm sure the people that are associated with this are looking forward to."

In an exclusive interview with NBC's Brian Williams, presumptive GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney discussed gun laws in the wake of the Aurora shooting:

WILLIAMS: "On things however like Aurora, Colorado, do you see why Americans get frustrated at politics.  They can see and hear your words from earlier in their career, people are hurting out there. Perhaps they want to start a national conversation about whether an AR-15 belongs in the hands of a citizen, whether a citizen should be able to buy 6-thousand rounds off the internet. You see the argument?"

Anthony Quintano/NBC News

NBC's Brian Williams interviews Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney in London on Wednesday, July 25, 2012

ROMNEY: "Well this person shouldn't have had any kind of weapons and bombs and other devices and it was illegal for him to have many of those things already. But he had them. And so we can sometimes hope that just changing the law will make all bad things go away. It won't. Changing the heart of the American people may well be what's essential, to improve the lots of the American people."

The full interview airs tonight on NBC Nightly News. 

Actor Andy Griffith died this morning at his home in North Carolina, NBC News reports. He was 86.

Griffith may have been most famous for his roles in "The Andy Griffith Show" and "Matlock," but he also played a prominent role in politics.

Most recently, he starred in an ad promoting Medicare and touting the president's health-care law.

And that wasn't the first time Griffith's name came up with regard to politics. Democrats always dreamed of Sen. Griffith. 

In fact, Griffith was so seriously considered to run for the Democratic nomination in 1990, that the polling outfit Mason-Dixon tested him against then-Sen. Jesse Helms (R).

Griffith led Helms by nine points, 48-39%, in that 1989 poll, a wider margin than former Gov. Jim Hunt (D), who had lost to Helms in a nasty 1984 race. Hunt led Helms in that poll 50-42%. (Hat tip to our friends at National Journal's Hotline.) (Former Charlotte Mayor Harvey Gantt, who is black, wound up being the Democratic standard bearer. And race became a central issue. That was the election where Helms ran the "Hands" ad - below.) 

"North Carolina has lost its favorite son," Democratic North Carolina Gov. Bev Perdue said in a statement. "Andy Griffith graciously stepped into the living rooms of generations of Americans, always with the playful charm that made him the standard by which entertainers would be measured for decades. Throughout his career, he represented everything that was good about North Carolina: a small town boy and UNC graduate who took a light-hearted approach to some of the attributes he grew up with and turned them into a spectacularly successful career. And regardless of where that career took him, he always came back to North Carolina and spent his final years here. In an increasingly complicated world, we all yearn for the days of Mayberry. We all will miss Andy, and I will dearly miss my friend."

The Raleigh News and Observer wrote of Griffith in 2010: "Griffith has been a closer for Democrats, an unimpeachable saintly figure who fills his rare political spots with folksy charm and obvious references to his role as a small-town North Carolina sheriff."