Bill Clinton attends Philadelphia-area rallies

In something of a campaign grand finale for Democratic Senate candidate Joe Sestak, former President Bill Clinton broke out the rhetorical fireworks for crowds of students at Bryn Mawr College and two other campus stops in the area Thursday.

During a 40-minute speech, delivered on the idyllic campus green at Bryn Mawr, Clinton started off praising Sestak, a retired Navy admiral, for his intelligence and patriotism.

"A United States senator has very serious national security responsibilities. It matters whether someone knows the hazards of war as well as the impulse to attack," he said.

"Not only does he have a Ph.D. from Harvard, he has a Ph.D. in human challenges," Clinton added, extolling Sestak for zealous service to his constituents during his two terms in Congress.

Sestak earned a Ph.D. in political economy from Harvard in 1984.

The former president shot off volleys of data about unemployment, the deficit, student loans, the bank bailout, the stimulus bill, health care - and a predicted 50 percent drop in voters under age 25 during this midterm election, the kind he was trying to coax to the polls.

"You need to go claim your future," he said, and pleaded with the students not only to vote Tuesday but to spend the next five days canvassing, talking to friends, and going on Facebook to support Sestak.

"Blitz the social networks," he exhorted them.

Later in the day, Clinton reprised the message at rallies at Cheyney and Temple Universities, urging students to get on Facebook and YouTube and tell friends to support Sestak and other Democrats.

Even as Clinton headed off to speak at Temple, Sestak's Republican rival, Pat Toomey, a former three-term member of Congress from the Lehigh Valley, pressed hands in a Republican-friendly part of a largely Democratic town - the Northeast.

He mingled with patrons at the Tailhook Tavern on Cottman Avenue, and, speaking to reporters accompanying him, delivered a broadside at his opponent for bringing out the former president on his behalf.

Toomey said it was hypocritical of Sestak to keep attacking him for his congressional votes favoring free trade and deregulation of businesses when many of those policy decisions were made under the former president's watch. "By Joe's logic, Bill Clinton is responsible for the problems we have," Toomey said.

At Bryn Mawr, several students who had not registered to vote left the rally rueful.

"I didn't want to register until the next election," said Zandalee Montero, 19, a sophomore at Bryn Mawr majoring in linguistics. She said she hadn't realized the importance of these midterm elections.

But Karl Moll, 20, a freshman at Haverford, has been working for months for the Sestak campaign.

"I think he has a good record," Moll said, especially noting Sestak's support of the health-care overhaul. Moll, a former professional ballet dancer, took a gap year to perform with the Rochester City Ballet, and had to pay for his own health insurance and could afford only a minimal policy.

"Luckily, I didn't get injured. . . . With the health-care bill, I can be covered under my parents' policy until I'm 26."

Madeline Smith-Gibbs, 19, a sophomore majoring in political science, said she attended the rally "because I want to get excited about voting."

Rather than submit an absentee ballot in her native North Carolina, she registered to vote locally. "It will be my first time voting, and I wanted the physical experience of walking into a polling place."

On the edge of the crowd, junior Miriam Magana, 20, rocked back and forth, soothing her 6-month-old daughter.

"I'm here to become a more informed voter," she said.

She said taking care of her infant and managing her course work had left little time to keep up with politics.

She knew enough, though, to know she would vote for Sestak. "Education is my most important issue."

Sestak's position on it?

She hesitated, then sighed. "As I said. I'm here to become a more informed voter."

Among seasoned voters in the crowd was Judith Shapiro. She wore a yellow T-shirt from a 1993 forum on entitlements that was organized by Marjorie Margolies-Mezvinsky, then a congresswoman from the area.

Clinton had attended that forum, held on the Bryn Mawr campus.

At the time, Shapiro was the college's provost. She went on to become president of Barnard College in New York, serving there until 2008.

Watching the students cheer Clinton, she said: "How much do we still need this man in political life?"

Even the Senate candidate turned wistful in Clinton's presence.

Sestak, an aide in the Clinton White House, walked up to the lectern with the former president's arm around his shoulder and proceeded to reminisce about the time his father, an immigrant from Czechoslovakia, first met Clinton.

"Don't let my son mess it up," Sestak said his father told Clinton.