The first official presidential candidate got comfortable yesterday at Concord High School. Standing beneath the bright lights of the auditorium stage, Iowa Gov. Tom Vilsack shed his navy blazer and loosened his striped tie before launching into a meandering Q-and-A session touching on Iraq, Britney Spears and the ecumenical patriarch of Constantinople.

"I'll let you in on a little secret," he told the rows of seated students. "Before this starts, what happens is you got like three or four staff people and they huddle around you, see. They huddle around you and they give you instructions and what you're supposed to do.

"You're supposed to take your coat off at some point so you can look like you're relaxed," Vilsack said.

The crowd murmured.

"It's a little nervous being up here, actually, a little hard," he said. "But I'm going to take my coat off because it's hot."

When he did, one student's clapping set off a chain reaction and before long, the entire auditorium applauded the governor's blue dress shirt.

"And if I were in my office by myself working on something that really matters, I'd probably take my tie down a little bit," Vilsack said, crooking his finger and pulling down on the knot, causing the tie to bunch around his clipped-on microphone. "I'd loosen my tie and I'd get down to work. So let's get down to work today."

Vilsack, who announced his entry Thursday into the presidential race, told the students yesterday about his tough childhood that began in an orphanage and said he considers himself a political underdog. Then he segued into how the country should use less energy and develop new sources of fuel, such as biodiesel.

When asked about the war in Iraq, Vilsack, 55, criticized potential presidential candidate and Arizona Sen. John McCain's plan to send more troops there. Doing so, he said, would overextend the military and increase Iraq's dependence on the United States.

"My view of what Sen. McCain wants to do is make a big mistake even bigger," Vilsack said.

Troops should be removed from "harm's way" in the southern and central parts of Iraq, he said, and redeployed briefly to the north. That would send a message to Turkey and Iran that the United States still has a military presence in Iraq, Vilsack said, and American soldiers could intervene there if a problem arose.

Students also asked Vilsack his views on the death penalty, abortion and gay marriage. Vilsack said he supports life in prison instead of the death penalty because the American justice system can be flawed. As for abortion, Vilsack said he's pro-choice. But having been adopted as a child, he said he'd like adoption to be encouraged more often.

Vilsack stopped short of supporting gay marriage, however, saying that decision was best left up to the individual states. But he said he supports civil unions. In explaining why, Vilsack picked on pop princess Britney Spears, whose Las Vegas marriage to a childhood friend was annulled after two days.

"During that 51-hour period, under the law, her husband had all these rights," Vilsack said. "He had the right to inherit, he had the right to make life and death decisions for her. Because we valued that commitment, for 51 hours.

"Now, a gay couple who has been committed to each other for 25 years, they don't have any of those rights," he said. "So my problem with the way we're currently approaching this issue is it doesn't seem to me like it values commitment. And that's why I believe what I believe."

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