DAVID SKOLNICK \ Politics Getting up close and personal with Kerry

A few months ago I asked Kerry-Edwards campaign officials if it was possible to do a telephone interview with either candidate. I never thought the request would be taken seriously, but it never hurts to ask. I figured I'd be laughed off or get a polite "no." Instead, one official said he would see what he could do.
I guess that's why they call Ohio a key battleground state. For campaign officials to even consider the request from the politics writer at a midsize Ohio newspaper shows how badly they want to get the Buckeye State's 20 electoral votes.
I never did land that telephone interview. But Sunday I got something better.
U.S. Sen. John Kerry, the Democratic presidential nominee, held a "town-hall-style" event at Austintown Fitch High School. Besides energizing his supporters and trying to swing a few undecided voters, Kerry held the event to prepare himself for tonight's "town-hall-style" debate in St. Louis.
As I and many other reporters do, we ask presidential campaign officials if there is a chance to conduct interviews with the candidates after events. At the beginning of the campaign, the answer was usually "yes," although print reporters often had to do it as a pack. With the candidates running from one city to another during the final weeks of the race, the answer is typically "no."
This time it was somewhat different. My first clue was Kerry's schedule. It stated the Fitch event would end at 2:30 p.m., and Kerry would fly out of the Youngstown-Warren Regional Airport at 4:20 p.m. It usually takes motorcades about 20 minutes to get from a Mahoning County location to the Vienna airport because the roads are closed in both directions when they travel. So I thought Kerry would do something with the media because he'd be sitting around doing nothing for more than an hour.
Presidential campaign officials rarely come right out and say a reporter is going to get an interview with the candidate. They speak in an indirect way, and if you have a Dick Tracy secret decoder ring, you can figure out what they mean.
A campaign staffer tracked me down at Fitch and asked that I speak to a higher-level official by cell phone. That person told me it might be a good idea to see her when she got to the school and that I might want to stick around after the event ended. She didn't come right out and say I'd get to speak to Kerry, but I got the message. I knew that decoder ring would come in handy.
At the event, I saw her, but she said nothing about staying after the event. Even so, I did. About 30 minutes later, she asked me to come with her. I followed her, along with other reporters, into the make-shift national press room. For the most part, the national press traveling with the candidates don't watch the event in person. Instead, they sit in a room with the speech shown on a large television, and reporters file articles from their laptops.
After a few minutes of standing there, she asked me and a Dayton Daily News reporter to follow her. Again, the other reporters followed as well but were told they could go no farther, even though one practically begged her.
The two of us were led down a cold, narrow hallway into the bowels of the Fitch gymnasium. We passed the toilets and showers used by the players on the school's sports teams. We were told to sit on a bench in the locker room and to wait a few minutes. We were told we'd have 10 minutes as we walked to the coaches' office.
The door opened and sitting at a table with a few people, including ex-U.S. Rep. Louis Stokes, was Kerry. We shook hands, and I was told to sit in the chair next to him. There was a container of Planters mixed nuts on the table, and I remarked that I hadn't eaten in hours. Kerry told me to help myself, which I did.
Kerry was exceptionally relaxed and despite what some conservative pundits say, the presidential nominee's skin tone is not orange up close -- or at least not on that day.
We talked about the steel industry, the military base closure procedure, the importance of Ohio in the election, and same-sex marriages, among other topics.
After several cashews, the 10 minutes were up, and we were escorted out of the room. I had interviewed Kerry before but never in such an intimate setting.