On Friday, Senator Obama held his first media availability since he filed his candidacy papers to run in the New Hampshire primary on October 22nd (when he only took a couple questions from local reporters, as is tradition after the Granite State exercise).

Twenty or so reporters assembled in Johnston, Iowa, for the avail following his appearance on a local political show called Iowa Press. Obama’s Iowa Communications Director called on reporters by name to ask the senator questions, only recognizing the local reporters in the group. The campaign declared “last question” five minutes and thirty seconds into questioning. The candidate had not taken one question from the national press corps.

“Oh no, no,” the Chicago Sun-Times‘ Lynn Sweet interrupted. “It’s been awhile. I have a few more questions.”

“If transparency is a big part of the campaign, why are the availabilities so few and far between and so short?” ABC’s David Wright added.

The candidate listened with no discernible reaction, took the final local reporter’s question, and acknowledged the tenacious Lynn Sweet. “All right, Lynn. Go ahead,” he  said – despite his staff’s best efforts to end the avail.

Obama took a series of tough questions from Sweet on the whereabouts of his state senate papers, a subject on which the reporter had previously written a story. Obama obliged one additional question from a national reporter before exiting a little more than ten minutes into the affair.

Watch the frenzy here:

As the senator walked away from national reporters with still more questions, he  apologetically said, “I gave a couple extra ones.”

Jeff Zeleny, the New York Times reporter on hand, followed the senator and asked, “Senator, if Senator Clinton happened to win the nomination – would you support her?”

“I’m a Democrat and would support the Democratic nominee,” the candidate answered. “I intend it to be me.”

(Obama will appear on NBC’s Meet the Press this Sunday)