‘Hedge Fund’ Chelsea Campaigns For Hillary

From the Stanford Daily:

Chelsea campaigns at Farm

Q&A targets college female demographic

January 14, 2008
By Andrea Fuller

Chelsea Clinton ‘01 fielded questions about her mother’s presidential bid last night before an audience of more than 100 young women packed on the floor of the Pi Beta Phi lounge.

Chelsea Clinton ‘01 made a campaign stop at Stanford yesterday evening, taking questions about her mother’s record on healthcare, Iraq and the Darfur genocide in the Pi Beta Phi lounge. She urged students to vote in California’s Feb. 5 primary.

The former first daughter’s address followed a smaller round table discussion at Old Union. Campaign organizers reached out to sororities in an effort to target women, one of Hillary Clinton’s “core demographics,” according to Carolyn Forstein ‘10, an associate with the Clinton campaign in San Francisco and a member of Stanford Students for Hillary.

“We had to reach out to Hillary supporters and undecided voters,” Forstein said. “We wanted to keep it pretty small, so we didn’t advertise that Chelsea was coming.”

Chelsea Clinton opened the question and answer session at Pi Phi by recalling her days as a Stanford undergraduate. The event was publicized to the five sororities in the Inter-Sorority Council.

“I’m overcome by nostalgia,” Clinton said. “I used to live in ZAP my sophomore year, so not that far away. Walking here from the library area was very reminiscent of late nights.”

Chelsea Clinton is taking time off from her job with Avenue Capital Group, a New York hedge fund, to promote the campaign of her mother, Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-N.Y.), for the Democratic presidential nomination.

“We are just trying to make my mom’s campaign more accessible to people,” she said. “We want to make sure that young people feel like the campaign is talking about issues that you care about and is delivering its plans and ideas in a way that resonates with you. “

Emily Hawkins, youth director for the Clinton campaign, asked for a show of hands from undecided students in the room. Most attendees raised their hands. The Democratic presidential primary in California is on Feb. 5, but many students registered absentee received their ballots in the mail last week.

“When I was at Stanford I was constantly haranguing my friends to vote, and unfortunately so many of them actually didn’t vote,” Clinton said. “You don’t have that excuse any more in California. Voting actually started a week ago.”

She addressed a series of questions about her mother’s campaign stances.

“I can tell you what my mom said — that she would end the war tomorrow if she could,” Clinton told a student who asked about troop withdrawals in Iraq.

But she said an immediate withdrawal was not fully feasible, as many troops have been killed in convoys. She said that her mother would take 60 days upon entering office to develop a plan to remove not only the troops but also American civilians stationed in Iraq.

“Unfortunately, the Bush administration has not been planning to end the war,” she said. “A couple days ago, President Bush reiterated that he thinks the troops might be there for 10 years.”

Chelsea Clinton also championed her mother’s emphasis on healthcare. She said that Americans happy with their current plans could keep them, but the Congressional plan would be opened up to the 47 million Americans who are uninsured and millions more who feel underinsured.

“[My mother] and Senator [John] Edwards are committed to universal healthcare,” she said. “Senator [Barack] Obama [D-Ill.] is committed to what we call ‘virtual’ universal healthcare which would make it an option for people to buy into the system. What my mother argues is that if you don’t mandate that everyone have healthcare, the healthy people may not buy into the system, which means that the average cost of insuring people is a lot higher.”

One student expressed concern about the Darfur genocide.

“I’m really proud that my mom was the first Democratic senator to call it a genocide in May of 2004 and put a lot of pressure on the Bush administration to recognize it as a genocide,” Clinton said.

She added that her mother has advocated for a more direct American role in negotiating a peace agreement, as well as for pressuring China to stop buying oil from the Sudan.

The meeting closed with a question about the buzzword of the 2008 presidential election: Change.

“It seems like most of the candidates in this election have been talking about how they are the candidate for change,” said Nicky Adamson ‘09, president of Pi Beta Phi. “How do you think your mom would be the most well equipped candidate for change?”

Chelsea Clinton defended her mother’s service record, championing her experience as a lawyer, education advocate, first lady and senator.

“I know that there is this dichotomy between change and experience that I think is really false and actually find offensive,” she said, “because I think my mom has been an agent for positive change in people’s lives for longer than I’ve been alive.

“I think it really matters what people have done in their lives,” she added. “I don’t know anyone who has done more for more people, particularly more young people and more young women, than my mom.”

Well, we know that Chelsea Clinton is all about “change” — large chunks of it.

For the idealistic young woman went straight from her education in the liberal arts at Stanford and Oxford and on to a half-million dollar a year job at a hedge fund. Where she is so important that she can take off for months at a time to jet around with her parents whenever the mood suits her.

(Of course her parents’ political influence had nothing to do with Chelsea getting that job. Like her mother, Ms. Clinton had become an expert on investing by reading the Wall Street journal.)

Just compare Chelsea’s life since college with those frivolous and heartless Republican Bush twins.