Doris Haddock was almost 89, stoop-shouldered but stiff-spined, when she laced up her sneakers, threw on a backpack and began trekking 3,200 miles across the country on New Year’s Day in 1999 — a one-woman march for campaign finance reform that started in Pasadena, Calif., and ended on the steps of the Capitol in Washington 14 months later.

Granny D, as she preferred to be called, drew considerable attention to her cause along the way. Cameras captured her strides. Drivers who had seen her banner on TV — “Granny D for Campaign Finance Reform” — honked. Politicians came out to pose for pictures. Reporters scratched her utterances into their notebooks.

In El Paso one Saturday night in April 1999, after passing strip clubs, fireworks stands and a sea of scrub brush along U.S. 62, Mrs. Haddock sat with a New York Times reporter at a Mexican restaurant.

“It just infuriates me!” she said, balling her hands into fists and striking the table. “I feel we are losing our democracy. The corporations are taking over and deciding who gets elected.”