Obama interview a big `get' for CBS' Steve Kroft

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http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081116/ap_en_tv/ap_on_tv_steve_kroft_2

The first time Steve Kroft went to Barack Obama's house to interview him two weeks before his presidential campaign kickoff, Obama's daughter Sasha answered the door.

Don't expect that to ever happen again. Life has changed dramatically for the Obama family, as Kroft learned Friday in Chicago when he conducted the first postelection interview with Obama. It was for Sunday's "60 Minutes" on CBS.

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Kroft was backstage with Obama when the Democrat accepted his party's nomination for president, and met him at other points in the campaign. This week's interview was his sixth, starting with that midwinter 2007 story where Obama took Kroft on a tour of the Chicago projects where he'd worked as a community organizer.

"That was particularly successful for them in getting their campaign going and having a lot of people see him talking," Kroft said. "The fact that we've been there at every critical point is important. We have been tough but fair. After having interviewed someone six times, you build a rapport with him."

(snip)
Linda Douglass, a former television journalist who was a spokeswoman for Obama's campaign, said she wasn't a part of the decision to give Kroft the first interview. But she said Obama feels like Kroft asks intelligent questions that allow him to get a message across.

"It's an old-fashioned professional relationship with a lot of mutual respect — not one of those interviews where you regard the interviewer warily but not one of those interviews where you know you are going to be thrown softballs," Douglass said.

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1. Thanks for the reminder that it's going to be

on tonight! I think the Kroft interviews are tough but fair, too..Obama can handle.

Biden handled his end, also, when they were together on 60 Minutes.