In Obama land, Chelsea takes flak head-on

The question was one she had heard before, but this time it was asked in downright hostile terms.

The question was one she had heard before, but this time it was asked in downright hostile terms.

8220;Has your mother shown any remorse for the fact that her vote cost Iraqis a million of their lives?8221; a student asked Chelsea Clinton on Monday at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Clinton replied: 8220;She cast a vote based on the best available evidence. Perhaps you had clairvoyance then, and that8217;s extraordinary.8221;

As Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton8217;s presidential campaign tries to win some younger voters, her daughter is parachuting into the heart of enemy-occupied territory: college campuses in the grip of Obama fever, both in must-win and lost-cause states for her mother8217;s candidacy. Clinton will soon campaign in Hawaii, the childhood home of Senator Barack Obama.

For nearly the first year of her mother8217;s presidential bid, Clinton, 27, was practically invisible to voters. Just before the Iowa caucuses on January 3, she began appearing in the tableau of flags and signs behind her mother at speeches. But when it became clear that Obama was making off with many people her age, Clinton decided to speak out. Unlike most other family members who hit the campaign trail, she does not offer an intimate portrait of the candidate, and she recounts old family stories only when her audiences clamour for one.

Instead, she upholds another Clinton tradition: blitzing her targets with policy details, especially on health care. That8217;s not counting her detours into Romanian reproductive policy and the design of the internal combustion engine.

8220;It was a little over my head,8221; admitted Stephanie Biese, the founder of the Students for Hillary chapter on the Madison campus, about an exchange Clinton had with another attendee about nuclear base loads.

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At these appearances, Clinton, on leave from her job at a New York hedge fund, greets her audience, plugs her mother8217;s Web site and asks for questions. Thin, with strawberry blonde hair that has none of its adolescent frizz, Clinton dresses with good-girl chic: muted colors, necklines that are high and skirt hems that are not.

Her voice is huskier than her mother8217;s, but she has her habit of opening her eyes wide to emphasize a point.

Clinton has been confronted with signs bearing messages like 8220;America deserves better than aristocracy8221; and 8220;Got Pimp?8221; a reference to a recent remark by a now-suspended MSNBC host who claimed that Clinton was exploiting her daughter.

But in a political race that has become a delegate-by-delegate fight, Clinton campaign officials say Clinton could make a difference.