Chelsea Clinton at UNT - Liveblog

4:58 Last question: the questioner has a little brother with spina bifida; what would Clinton do for him? Chelsea points out that fully funding Medicare would allow his brother to get the care he needs, and getting everyone universal health care would make those costs more affordable. Chelsea hopes everyone votes for her mom, and is adamant: "Early vote! Early vote!" before leaving to applause.

4:55 What role would Chelsea's father have in a Clinton administration? Bill Clinton runs the Clinton Foundation now; Chelsea seems to indicate that he'd be putting a strong focus on that instead of on some role in the administration.

4:50 Asked where we see that Clinton is more experienced, Chelsea notes how often she's been the first to bring up many issues in Congress — the home foreclosure crisis, childrens' vaccine initiatives, funding to treat vets with Gulf War Syndrome — and how experience isn't just about what Clinton has done, but how she can identify what needs to be done.

4:37 The current question wasn't repeated, which is a shame, because the answer's got me interested. I think it must have asked something along the lines of "which candidate stands for more radical change?" Chelsea's answer was, "what do you care about?" Far from folding to the common meme that Obama's the more radical of the two, she points out that if you care about affordability of higher education, where Clinton's plan is far more expansive than anyone else's, or health care, where her plan is universal, or education, et cetera, Clinton actually has advocated for more radical policies than Obama. I've got to say, I like that answer — not only does it stick it to common perception, which I always have a soft spot for, but it illustrates real differences between the candidates that aren't always articulated.

Another little factoid from Chelsea: As far as comparative earnings go, white women make 76 cents on the dollar compared to white males; African-Americans make 72 cents and Latinos 67 cents.

4:30 Chelsea's asked from an undecided voter what her mother would do about "business as usual" and getting rid of lobbyist influence in Washington. There's a little bit of an edge to that question, obviously, as "business as usual" is an Obama stump line. Chelsea notes her working against special interests in the health care fight which led to the childrens' health care bill. The question after that is why Senator Clinton "voted for the war and for the Patriot Act." (Speaking of questions that I'm sure she gets at every stop.) She notes that President Bush never asked about the war, and that Senator Clinton voted for inspectors to enter Iraq, due to reasons that many at the time thought were legitimate. Chelsea notes that Senator Clinton went into more detail as to those reasons in the last debate — which she did; and made the best case she's ever made for her vote at that debate — and that the question is likely to be asked and answered again at the debate at the University of Texas on Thursday. (Which we'll be liveblogging as well!)

4:26 I'm sure she gets this question at least once in each stop, so to save our readers some suspense: no, Chelsea has no present plans of getting married. "Much to my mother's chagrin, I think."

4:18 Big applause for ending No Child Left Behind — is that any surprise, coming from the students of what was once a teachers' college? Texans know very well how much harm the unfunded mandate has caused our public schools.

An interesting nugget of trivia: we are 27th in the world in advanced math and science at the high school level. That's pretty miserable. I'm pretty sure there are quite a few folks in America that can't name 26 other countries.

4:13 It's interesting: Chelsea's answers are fairly long and detailed, filled with policy points — and the crowd seems to be eating it up. Really, I guess comparisons to Obama's rally are pretty much baseless — this is not a rally, this is a policy forum. Chelsea is addressing core policy points, and effectively getting out the core Democratic message. Where differences can be drawn with Obama, of course, they're drawn, but on the whole the questions being asked are ones on which all of the Democratic candidates are very similar, and on which they're very aligned with the average American. She's answered questions on security, energy, and foreign policy, all with a nod to Clinton's policies but all addressing core strengths of Democrats.

4:01 A health care question. Chelsea gets big applause for pointing out that her mother's the only one left in the race with a universal health plan. That's a point of contention we've heard often between the two camps, and Chelsea defends it well on the stump point that including everyone makes it cheaper for everyone.

Overall, the crowd seems enthusiastic about Chelsea — perhaps the support is not as rabid as the Obama rally, but at the same time, the candidate isn't here, so that's a bit of an apples-to-oranges comparison.

3:56 Chelsea's getting a lot of applause for the next question — she's been asked what her mother plans to do to make college more affordable. Obviously that's a key concern for pretty much everyone here, and something Democrats have always been much stronger on than Republicans. There are a lot of policy points in there, including the subsidies for students that subsequently go into some sort of public or community service which we also heard earlier at the Obama rally. She also gets a personal narrative in there about her mother having paid 2% interest on her college loan, and how much they've increased.

3:53 Chelsea got a doozy of a four-part question to start off with, and is apparently addressing an illegal immigration question first. She seems solid on the campaign talking points, talking about the path to citizenship and stressing that there are penalties for those who break the law, implicitly countering the common "amnesty" claim about Democrats' plans.

3:51 Looks like the plan was for Chelsea to have a town hall-style meeting; after a brief introduction, she's already taking questions from the crowd. There seem to be a few technical difficulties with mics and such, so catching the questions is a bit difficult.

3:45 I'm not sure the University of North Texas' University Union has ever seen quite this big a crowd. The rally's being held in the Union foyer, which is overlooked by all three floors of the Union — and all three floors have people packed across the railings, at least four or five deep. Chelsea is about to come on, from the sound of it; UNT College Democrats president Joe Vogas is doing some pre-rally stumping for the College Dems. I should add that Joe deserves a pat on the back for doing a lot of last-minute organizing for the event; from the turnout, it's clear he did a great job.