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As the personal assistant and closest aide to presumptive Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry, Nicholson is charged with a daily battery of dawn-to-dusk duties designed to keep the senator fed, focused, and on task. (In campaign argot, this is called being a candidate's ``body guy,'' though Nicholson prefers the title ``chief of stuff.'')

Nicholson wakes the candidate every morning on the road and makes sure he gets to where he needs to go. Racing between events, it's Nicholson who hands Kerry a water bottle or lunch and who passes him the cellular phone with a nudge to call a donor, return a message from his family, or check in with headquarters.

Born in Canada to an American mother, he was a geology major in college, a course of study that, he joked, "I parlayed into a string of bartending jobs."

Nicholson met Kerry in 1998 while working at a windsurfing shop in Cambridge. The two were reacquainted that summer when Nicholson caddied at the Nantucket Golf Club. During one round in 1999, he carried the bag of President Clinton.

After Nantucket, Nicholson moved south for one season at the Augusta National Golf Club, part of his plan to become a professional caddy. In what Nicholson describes as "one of the most amazing moments of my life," he was caddying for Arnold Palmer when the golf legend had a chance to make eagle on the par-5 13th hole. Nicholson nervously pointed out the break in the green; Palmer barely touched the ball, and it sped left before breaking back into the cup.

In 2000, Kerry invited Nicholson to intern in his office. Soon he became Kerry's driver, and then body man. The prime qualification, Nicholson said, is trustworthiness because his closeness to the senator gives him access to the campaign's innermost secrets.

"I don't hear anything, I don't say anything, I don't see anything," he said with a broad smile.