Chelsea comes to desperate Hillary's aid

Published on Saturday 16 February 2008 18:58

SHE won't admit it but desperation appears to be creeping in. Daughter Chelsea and husband Bill will be deployed this week to prop up Hillary Clinton's faltering presidential campaign.

Chelsea, now 27 and a far cry from the somewhat awkward braces-wearing teenager of old, is being dispatched to Hawaii while the former president will join his wife in Texas to help her cover a state the size of western Europe.

The delegate-rich Lone Star state, which votes on March 4, is vital to Clinton's hopes of clawing back the lead the Democrat rival Barack Obama has established after a string of primary victories.

Campaign staff hope the sight of all three Clintons campaigning across America will help voters identify Hillary with "family values", softening an often brittle public image.

Chelsea's move to Hawaii, which votes in a primary on Tuesday, marks the emergence into the public eye of a woman who, until recently, has stayed out of the limelight.

Since living with her parents in the White House in the early 1990s, the tall, elegant Chelsea has earned a history degree from Stanford University and now works for a New York hedge fund managed by one of her mother's fund-raisers.

Chelsea has attracted little public attention apart from choosing as a boyfriend Marc Mezvinsky, son of a disgraced former congressman Ed Mezvinsky, who is serving a six-year sentence for fraud.

How she handles the new role is unclear. In December she refused to answer a question by a nine-year-old working for a school paper, explaining that she could not talk to the press, "even though I think you're cute".

For Bill, the Texas deployment marks a return from a political dead zone he has occupied since his role as Hillary's "attack dog" went wrong in January.

His assertion that Obama's opposition to the Iraq war – which Hillary supported – was a "fairy tale" caused a storm of controversy. He later apologised, but when polls showed he was having a negative effect on his wife's campaign, he slipped into the background.

Campaign officials hope he can rekindle some of his former popularity, but not everyone thinks he can succeed. "Chelsea is not the problem; Bill is the problem. He has annoyed a lot of people," said Allen Steiner, an expert on American constitutional history at Iowa University.

"It's a mistake to attack Obama. Nobody dislikes him."

But Hillary is getting anxious, after a week that has seen her nomination bid turned upside down.

First came eight straight losses in primary states where, until a few weeks ago, she had comfortable majorities.

Then the replacement of her campaign manager triggered leaks from staff indicating disquiet among her planners.

Finally came rumours that her coffers are bare and that she is preparing to add to the $5m she has already lent to her campaign. By contrast, Obama's campaign is raising record sums with a huge internet campaign among his mostly young supporters. He also has a narrow lead in delegates.

Some doubt that replacing her 'Team Clinton' with 'Family Clinton' can reverse Hillary's fortunes.

"They're pulling out all the stops and throwing everything they can at it," said Democratic Party pollster Phil Noble. "If they had a dog, they would bring the dog out."

Officially, the Clinton campaign is buoyant: she still leads the polls in Texas, and in Ohio, which votes on the same day.

Wins in these states could put her on a par with Obama in delegate numbers, giving her momentum to pull ahead in the final big state race, in Pennsylvania on April 22.

A win here would, in turn, give her a platform for victory, because she leads Obama in the number of party-appointed Super Delegates giving her their support.

Yet for all this to happen, she must find a way of halting Obama's ever wider lead in the polls, persuading voters that her claim to "experience" trumps Obama's call for "change".

The mathematics of the campaign means that neither candidate is likely to win more than 50% of the popular vote in the primaries that remain, leaving the choice in the hands of the Super Delegates.

But Democratic sources say Hillary's Super Delegates would be reluctant to give her the nomination this summer if Obama has captured the popular vote. To win, she must find a way to get back lost ground.