Chelsea Clinton visited Roger Williams University, and dropped by the Newspaper Guild Follies.

The Providence Journal / Andrew Dickerman

Former first daughter Chelsea Clinton, in Rhode Island to campaign for her mother, Hillary Rodham Clinton, made stops yesterday at Roger Williams University in Bristol, where she answered questions about her mother’s stand on everything from Iraq to the subprime lending crisis, and at the Venus de Milo in Swansea, where she dropped in on the 35th annual Providence Newspaper Guild Follies.

She was warmly received by students who crowded Hawk’s Hangout, the former student union at Roger Willliams University. She was mobbed by well-wishers at the Venus, where Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse led her through the crowd.

But there was no avoiding the opposition. At Roger Williams, Juan Escoriza, a junior from Texas who is campus coordinator of Students for Obama, used her campaign appearance to round up 28 students for the Obama rally today at Rhode Island College.

On her way out of the Venus, Clinton encountered Rhode Island Attorney General Patrick C. Lynch, an outspoken Obama supporter. Said Whitehouse: “He’s currently misaligned.”

“You’ll have a chance to fix that,” Clinton told Lynch, smiling at him.

Lynch said, “I’m really glad you’re here.”

At Roger Williams, Clinton, 28, answered questions forth-rightly, talking at length and offering at times excruciating detail about her mother’s positions on the issues.

“I passionately believe in my mom, as a daughter — I know that we’re all biased toward our parents — but also as a young woman and as a young voter,” she told the crowd of roughly 325 students in the Hawk’s Hangout.

“And I’d like to talk to you about whatever it is you care about as young women, as young voters, as you think about whom to support.”

The questions weren’t all friendly. One student asked about the 200,000 jobs that Clinton, campaigning for the Senate in upstate New York eight years ago, promised to create that never materialized.

Another student asked about the genocide in Rwanda that failed to draw a response from President Clinton during his first term.

Chelsea Clinton parried the questions, turning them into opportunities to boost her mother’s candidacy and to attack President Bush.

“I’m proud that my father has apologized to the Rwandan people and I know that that is something that will haunt him for the rest of his life. I’m proud that my Mom is one of the first senators to call Darfur a genocide in early 2004, and to push for funding for the African Union troops and to push the Bush administration to call it a genocide, something President Bush finally did before he went to Africa earlier this month.”

As for the promise of 200,000 jobs, Clinton said the students should bear in mind the political context when her mother made it.

Al Gore was running for president. Hillary Clinton expected him to be elected, Chelsea Clinton said.

Instead, she said, the country got George W. Bush, who, with his deficit spending and tax cuts for the rich, has been bad for the economy, she said.

jcastell@projo.com