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Chelsea Clinton Takes Path To Young Voters

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By GREG BLUESTEIN, The Associated Press

Published: January 24, 2008

ATLANTA - While her parents command center stage at massive campaign rallies, Chelsea Clinton has gone the road less traveled.

The only child of Democratic presidential hopeful Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York has ventured to casinos and a cosmetology school in Nevada, made impromptu visits to coffee shops and Wednesday stopped at Spelman College, a historically black school for women.

It's part of the Clinton campaign's bid to reach voters off the beaten path and help erode the popularity of Democratic Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois with young voters, who contributed to his victory in the Iowa caucuses. More than one-third of his support there came from voters under 30, according to exit polls.

"I'm actually here today, to be honest, as part of a reaction to that," Chelsea Clinton told an audience member who asked about Obama's appeal to young voters.

That she's out in public, and on her own, speaks volumes. Her parents took great pains to shield her from the media glare during the eight years they lived in the White House. She also was largely absent from her mother's campaign until December.

Then at campaign rallies leading up to the Jan. 3 caucuses in Iowa, Chelsea Clinton ventured into the crowds afterward to ask voters to support her mother.

Reporters covering the campaign have been told Chelsea Clinton will not speak to them. She made headlines recently for turning down an interview with a 9-year-old "kid reporter" for Scholastic News.

On Wednesday, she told Spelman students she decided to take a more vocal role in the campaign because she feels her mother's record, not Obama's, should be the more appealing to young voters.

"That message got lost in the story after Iowa," she said. "I'm here because I want to be a voice for those policies."

She still won't speak with reporters, but when audience members lobbed questions, she replied with answers about her mother's health care, education and immigration policies.

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