Hillary Clinton returns to Boston

US Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York was the key draw at a $2,500-per-person Kerry-Edwards fund-raiser late yesterday afternoon in Westin Copley Place, where she declared John F. Kerry the ''hands-down" winner of Thursday night's debate.

The reception -- part of a Northeast swing by Clinton yesterday that included a stop in Portland, Maine, organized by the Kerry/Edwards Victory 2004 fund -- drew about 150 local supporters and more than $500,000.

''I thought Senator Kerry was the hands-down winner," she told reporters at a news conference prior to the reception, which was closed to the press. ''He had a chance for the American people to see him unfiltered . . . for 90 minutes. He came across as strong and decisive and in control of the facts."

The New York senator said she thought President Bush seemed ill at ease during the debate in Miami. ''I thought the president seemed to be on the defensive," she said. ''I chalk that up to his unwillingness to take hard questions from the press or anyone else."

Kerry and Bush will square off Friday at Washington University in St. Louis and on Oct. 13 at Arizona State University.

''What Senator Kerry has to do is just keep drawing the contrasts," Clinton said. ''I'm very confident that that's what's going to lead to victory for him in a month."

Clinton said the senator's skills at debating in a town hall format will give Kerry the advantage in Friday's debate.

''I've done some town halls with Senator Kerry," she said. ''I thought he connected very well; he took everybody's question very seriously. He has to do the same thing in front of tens of millions of Americans."

Clinton also updated reporters on her husband's health; the former president underwent heart surgery last month.

''He's on the phone offering his counsel to people," she said. ''He was very excited by the debate on Thursday night. I was relieved because it kept his blood pressure down. He was really thrilled at Senator Kerry's performance."

The Democratic presidential nominee does not need to concern himself much with his war chest, however. His campaign with Senator John Edwards of North Carolina recently eclipsed the record for the most money ever raised by a Democratic presidential candidate, according to the campaign's New England finance chairman, Alan Solomon.

Most of the funds raised during the two Clinton events yesterday will go toward beefing up campaigns in battleground states.

''Our job here is to provide resources for the campaign so he can win it in the battleground states," Solomon said.

Clinton, in town for the first time since the Democratic National Convention in July, said that she was ''very happy to be back" and that the prospect of a senator from Massachusetts being elected ''has a lot of people excited."

Upon exiting the hotel function room where reporters had gathered, Clinton mused on unspoken tensions between the state she represents and Boston.

''See, I didn't say a thing about the Yankees," she said. ''Wasn't I a good guest?"