Like mother, like daughter.
“Her mother found her voice in New Hampshire, and Chelsea Clinton, has found hers too,” wrote Nikki Schwab of U.S. News & World Report in a story posted Tuesday on the magazine’s website.
The emergence as a campaign speaker of the 27-year-old daughter of presidential contender Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-NY, and former President Bill Clinton represents a significant shift in the role of the former, and possibly future, first daughter.
Analysts say that her increased presence reflects an effort by the Clinton campaign to counter Sen. Barack Obama’s appeal to young voters.
“It’s great that she’s here,” an Obama supporter told the San Francisco Chronicle. “She always handled herself with dignity and grace, despite the media scrutiny.”
The Clintons shielded Chelsea from the press and, to a large degree, the public during their years in the White House from 1993 to 2001.
After that, her undergraduate years at Stanford University were essentially off limits. (A reporter for the college paper was dismissed for writing about her).
After Stanford, Clinton obtained a graduate degree at Oxford University in England. She then worked in London for McKinsey & Company, a management-consulting firm.
Since 2006, she has been an employee Avenue Capital Group, a hedge fund founded by Marc Lasry and Sonia E. Gardner, two significant contributors to Democratic candidates.
A resident of New York City who is on the board of the School of American Ballet, Clinton has generally stayed out the spotlight until this campaign, save for gossip-column items.
The press noted her parting in 2006 from boyfriend Ian Klaus, a Rhodes scholar and writer.
And it has chronicled her relationship with Goldman Sachs employee Marc Mezvinsky, a childhood friend, fellow Stanford alum and the son of two former members of Congress, Marjorie Margolis-Mezvinsky and Edward Mezvinsky.
Elder Mezvinsky pleaded guilty in 2002 to defrauding investors of more than $10 million. He is expected to be released from prison this year.
Chelsea Clinton accompanied her mother when she was running for re-election to the Senate in 2006, but she did not have a significant role.
She began to speak on her mother’s behalf earlier this year, making solo appearances in California.
Clinton does not give long speeches at her events, which are often on college campuses. Rather, she talks for a few minutes and then takes questions.
The Chronicle reported that she had a quick reply when a questioner asked her when she, like her parents, would run for president.
“No, no, no,” she said. “I’ll leave that to them.”
She also made clear that she doesn’t want to move back to the White House should there be a Clinton victory this November.
“I love my parents, and I want my mother to be president,” she said. “But I’m 27 years old. I wouldn’t want to live with my parents again.”
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