The trail gets bumpy for Chelsea Clinton

Perhaps that is due to fatigue. Her day began at 5:30 a.m. in Philadelphia and ended with a red-eye flight back to the East Coast. In between, according to campaign senior aide Philippe Reines, she would take four flights, spend 13 1/2 hours in the air and four hours driving in order to visit a Democratic Party meeting in Eugene and two college campuses -- in Corvallis and Portland -- before ending her day at a kitschy AIDS fundraiser in Portland, where everyone, including men, wore red dresses. (Clinton changed into a red Gap T-shirt for the party.) She also made three Starbucks runs.

She can talk seamlessly about clean-burning coal and sugar-based ethanol in Brazil, the ill effects of No Child Left Behind, the earned income tax credit and the formula for troop drawdown in Iraq.

She displays a dry wit, such as the moment when a man in Eugene began a question, "With all due respect," and Clinton interjected, with mock dismay, "Oh dear." How would she advise her mother, he asked, if Obama were the nominee and he wanted Hillary Clinton as his vice president?

"Well, sir, you make a lot of assumptions," she said to cheers, before telling him she couldn't answer the question because she believes her mom is still the best candidate for the top job.

Audience members who dare to raise her father's scandals have been booed by other audience members, and rightfully so, many think.

"You wouldn't ask any other surrogate about Monica Lewinsky," Jamieson said. "Those questions are inappropriate . . . intrusions on a family's space."

But even when a tough question is about policy, the audience is firmly in Clinton's corner.

At Portland State University on Saturday, graduate student Paul Aranas, 28, challenged her on a topic he has studied.

"You've mentioned morality and the U.N.," he said. "Why does your mom continue to support the embargo on Cuba? . . . Why does your mom denounce Hugo Chavez, a democratically elected leader?"

Clinton replied that her mother has said she hopes Raul Castro "has a different posture and a different policy than his brother." As for the Venezuelan leader, she added, her mother takes issue with Chavez's energy policy and human rights record.

Aranas shook his head. "Well," Clinton said, "you can disagree, but . . . ." As Aranas started to answer, he was shushed.

"You asked your question!" hissed a woman.

"It was almost like immediate censorship," Aranas said later.

Others, however, were bowled over by Clinton's poise and command of the issues.

"There was only one antagonistic question and she handled it well without getting offensive," said Mary Sykora, a 26-year-old graduate student, referring to Aranas. "She's just as dynamic as her mother and father."

Casey Moffett-Chaney, a New Thought minister, was equally impressed. "If she is a testament to her parents," she said, "then no question, her mother should be president."

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robin.abcarian@latimes.com