Clinton opens Pa. push in Scranton

SCRANTON - Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton returned yesterday to the city where she was baptized to kick off her campaign for the Pennsylvania presidential primary, sprinkling her speech with local references.

She spoke of her grandfather working in the lace mills for 54 years, of ice cream treats, buying school clothes at the old Scranton Dry Goods store, and watching movies on a sheet during summer vacations at the family's Lake Winola cottage.

"It was a great place to be a kid," Clinton said of the lakefront. "You were basically just told to leave after breakfast and come back for dinner. . . . Nobody worried. We rode horses, we went fishing, we went hiking.

"My only regret is my father is not here in person, but I have a feeling he's been here in spirit."

She eschewed the sharp-edged attacks on Sen. Barack Obama that fueled her comeback primary wins in Ohio, Texas and Rhode Island last week, choosing nostalgia instead.

Earlier, after a stop at Revello's in Old Forge, Pa., for a cut of white pizza, she was asked why she and her supporters have suggested Obama would be a good vice-presidential candidate after arguing he was unprepared for the Oval Office.

"It's way too early to be talking about vice president," Clinton said, trying to dismiss the talk that, she said, has "taken on a life of its own."

During a campaign stop in Columbus, Miss., yesterday, Obama said: "I don't know how somebody who is in second place is offering the vice presidency to the person who is in first place." He also derided the Clinton campaign's logic: "If I'm not ready, how is it that you think I should be such a great vice president?"

Clinton was launching her first foray into the state in advance of the April 22 primary, the beginning of a six-week onslaught of candidates, surrogates and campaign commercials. Today, she is to speak in Harrisburg and appear at a rally at Temple University at 6 p.m. She is to be interviewed on radio at 8:50 a.m. on the Booker show on WIOQ (102.1).

Obama, in his first stop for the primary, was scheduled today to visit a factory in Fairless Hills, Bucks County.

Pennsylvania has 157 pledged delegates at stake in the primary, though the larger audience for what happens in the state is about 300 undecided Democratic superdelegates across the country. They might become crucial if the two rivals remain close in the delegate count and short of the 2,025 required to nominate.

Clinton seemed energized by the crowd of about 3,500 crammed into the Scranton High School gym. Several hundred people were turned away.

"The Irish love you!" a female voice yelled out during a quiet pause in the speech. "And I love the Irish," Clinton responded, as the crowd cheered.

At the end, the Scranton school's choir broke into "Ain't No Party Like a Clinton Party," and the candidate danced.

Northeast Pennsylvania is considered friendly territory for Clinton, who has built her winning coalitions with broad support from older voters, working-class whites, and Catholics - all demographic groups the area has in abundance.

"It's a crucial area," said Ed Mitchell, a Democratic political consultant in Wilkes-Barre. "She would need a good vote out of here to offset what Obama's going to do in Philadelphia and the suburbs."

Nearly three hours before the event began, Pat Wall, a childhood acquaintance, waited in a long, snaking line, hoping to give Clinton a lump of coal.

They used to hang out together as girls on Lake Winola, 20 miles north of here.

"Her nose was always in a book," said Wall, 53, who said she looked up to Clinton, seven years her senior. "We used to go swimming together down in the lake and play under the porch."

Wall bought a pen set for Clinton at the Anthracite Museum - it has a polished chunk of coal on its base - and hoped to be able to give it to her old friend.

Tony Rodham, two weeks after a hip-replacement operation, brought his 14-month-old daughter, Fiona, to see her aunt's presidential campaign rally in the family's sentimental home of Scranton. She toddled around the high school wearing a T-shirt that said "I Can Be President."

Fiona, a Virginia resident like her father, was baptized last year at Court Street United Methodist Church, Rodham said, "in the same baptismal gown my father wore" - as did a young Hillary Rodham. "We have another due in July, and we'll be back here again."

Rodham, 53, said Scranton was as much Clinton's home as any other. The family still has a cottage on Lake Winola. "She wasn't literally born here, but she has been here all her life," he said. "These are the hardest-working, kindest, most deserving people in the world," he said. "People in Scranton have the biggest hearts I have ever seen."

Said Clinton: "You know, this truly is like a homecoming. . . . I want you to know you will have a friend and partner in the White House."

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