Clinton reminisces, garners support at Wellesley

WELLESLEY - Returning to her alma mater yesterday for the first time as a presidential candidate, Hillary Clinton recounted how she was so intimidated as a freshman that she wanted to give up and go home to Chicago. How young women raced along Route 9 on Saturday nights to make curfew after their dates. And how late-night debates with her Wellesley College classmates fed her dreams and ambitions.

"In so many ways, this all-women's college prepared me to compete in the all boys' club of presidential politics," Clinton declared, prompting yells and applause.

"I have to tell you, though, when I came to Wellesley, I never in a million years could have imagined I would one day return as a candidate for the presidency of the United States."

Thirty-six hours after a televised Democratic debate in which she came under sustained and withering attack - her campaign accused her male rivals of piling it on - Clinton visited the friendliest territory imaginable to unveil her campaign's new effort to organize campus groups. The issue was not whether Clinton has waffled on fixing Social Security or giving driver's licenses to illegal immigrants, but whether she will be the first woman elected president.

More than 1,000 young women, and a few men, screamed at top volume, stomped their feet, and danced in the aisles to welcome the class of 1969 alumna, who in addition to asking students to volunteer for her campaign, spoke at length about women's advancement in society.

"We're ready to shatter that highest glass ceiling," she said.

Clinton's closest opponent in the polls, Senator Barack Obama of Illinois, has inspired unusual devotion on college campuses, but Clinton's campaign said it has 120 Students for Hillary chapters in 37 states and expects many more to open soon. The campaign unveiled a new "Hillblazers" website for student supporters, and Clinton also spoke yesterday at the University of New Hampshire.

Applications to Wellesley shot up after Clinton's husband became president in 1993. A spokeswoman said it's too soon to say whether her presidential run will attract more interest from prospective students, but some applicants continue to cite her as a reason for considering the school.

Clinton began her 40-minute speech by mentioning the old rules for young women that she helped abolish at Wellesley, and of which many of today's undergraduates were unaware. Boys were allowed to visit dormitory rooms only on Sunday afternoons, and couples had to keep at least two of their four feet on the floor at all times.

"Try it sometime," she deadpanned, to big laughs.

On a more serious note, she spoke about becoming Wellesley's first student commencement speaker. Her anguished, rambling remarks were reprinted in Life magazine because they reflected 1960s angst. She said she cringes at her youthful musings - "coming to terms with our humanness" - but said she still believes in one of her lines, that politics is about "making what appears to be impossible, possible."

Clinton spoke of driving up to New Hampshire to canvass for Eugene McCarthy, who ran for president on an antiwar platform in 1968.

Although she sometimes notes it on the campaign trail, Clinton yesterday did not mention that she arrived on campus a Goldwater Republican and led the campus Republicans before becoming an antiwar Democrat.

She told a couple of stories about witnessing sexism in her career, including when a colleague told her that it would be impossible for her to be a courtroom lawyer because she had no wife to make sure she had clean socks during a long trial.

Members of the campus group supporting Clinton wore bright blue T-shirts that said, "I can be president, too." (One freshman had a T-shirt that said "Hot for Hillary.")

Several students said they were inspired by Clinton's candidacy. "Maybe one of us will be the second female president," suggested Courtney Streett, a junior from Delaware majoring in environmental policy and Africana studies.

Others, however, said the gender barrier in the White House isn't the most important thing, including Alia Radman, a sophomore who had lived in Bosnia and said she has long loved the Clintons because President Clinton intervened to end the war there.

"It would bother me if people would only vote for her because she's a woman, because that demeans what she has to say," said Radman, who is studying filmmaking and Middle Eastern studies.

Bombardieri can be reached at bombardieri@globe.com.