The XX Factor: What women really think.

Chelsea's Quiet Pitch for Her Mom

Chelsea Clinton has no trouble talking, as it turns out, though she doesn't seem to enjoy it much. The former First Kid took audience questions for nearly an hour at a small campaign event today at the University of Maryland, where she was articulate, knowledgeable and almost completely without affect.

There's a reason most people have never heard her voice; at a campaign rally in Utah on Jan. 29, Chelsea told the crowd she'd never spoken in public before, and "I'm feeling a little bit intimidated about that.'' She did not seem particularly nervous in front of a couple of hundred people on the campus in College Park, but rarely smiled as she reeled off the details of her mother's campaign proposals in a soft near-monotone.

On a makeshift stage in the student union's lower level food court, she said hello and made just one point about her mom—briefly pitching her as a fiscal conservative—before going straight to the Q & A. Now that she's in the financial sector herself, said Chelsea, who works for a hedge fund, she sees how important it is that Hillary Clinton puts a price tag on all of her policy proposals: "She tells you how she'll pay for everything, and that makes her the most fiscally conservative person on either side of the aisle.''

She began nearly every answer similarly: "I'm really proud that ...'' When asked about her mother's plan to expand insurance coverage, she began, "I'm proud that she stood up for universal health care,'' then went on to suggest that her own health benefits are not what they might be: "If you're like me and you're not happy with your employer-provided health care'' you'd do better under the Clinton plan. To a young man in the Air Force who wondered what would happen to his pay if Clinton were elected, she said, "I'm really proud how she worked with Lindsey Graham'' to push for regular military pay raises. Without altering her even, pleasant tone of voice, she added, "I don't know how many of you know Lindsey Graham, but he is a very conservative senator and someone who prosecuted my father in the '90s.''

Asked about the deficit, she characterized her mother as "even more fiscally conservative than my dad,'' and in speaking about how her mother would push for global action on global climate change, said Hillary would be like "Thatcher banging Reagan and Gorbachev's heads together'' and convincing them they could talk to each other. Restarting the Kyoto process would "be good for the children and grandchildren I hope to have, and be good for our economy.''

Twice, she said enigmatically that it was humbling to be speaking to people younger than she: "Some of you are a lot younger than I am, I say with another dose of humility.'' Her biggest applause line of the day was, predictably, when she said her mom wants to double the amount of Pell grants to low-income college students. If her mother had not had access to student loans, she said, "I quite literally would not be standing here.''

The question she herself most clearly enjoyed was from a young woman who said, "There's so much sexism in this campaign and in the attacks on your mom. I'm wondering, how do you and your mom take the sexism?''

"You should talk to your friends about what you think motivates the coverage and what it implies,'' Chelsea answered, flashing a rare smile. She cracked a grin, too, when Nandini Jammi, a UMD sophomore, read her a limerick she'd prepared for the occasion. "My boyfriend is here and he's never written me a limerick,'' Chelsea responded. The verse went like this:

"No,'' Bill and Hillary's daughter answered quietly. "I do have a very personal political ambition, and that is to help my mom become my president.'' The only question she did not answer was about what she makes of Barack Obama's amazing popularity and whether her mother would consider choosing Obama as her running mate if she got their party's nomination: "I'm really proud of the broad base of support my mom has also inspired,'' Chelsea told the questioner. "I think the fact that my mom has won re-election and won the plurality of the electorate''—even winning support from farmers in upstate New York—"is a major endorsement of her electability.'' As for whether they'll end up as running mates, "That came up in the debate in L.A. and I would urge you to look at that; I don't have anything to add.''

These weren't reporters asking the questions, so nobody inquired about David Shuster, or whether she thinks the MSNBC reporter's head ought to roll for suggesting that her mom had "pimped her out'' by moving her into a speaking role. Or whether her mother, who has demanded that he be fired, was perhaps exaggerating the slight, hoping to capitalize on the grievance ahead of Tuesday's primaries.