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We're at the Penn State, Delaware County, campus, awaiting the arrival of Bill Clinton in what qualifies as the first big event of the Pennsylvania primary campaign. The former president is on his way from Center City, where he met with the Philadelphia ward leaders behind close doors. The ward leaders, whose endorsement probably isn't worth a whole heck of a lot in a race like this, aren't expected to endorse either Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama. Or so Mayor Nutter said on his way in. And you'd figure he should know.
There are several thousand people in the gymnasium here, awaiting the arrival of the main man. Most people are standing, not because there are so many of them but because very few of the risers have been pulled down. They're amusing themselves by chanting We Are...Penn State.

Accompanied by Congressman Joe Sestak, who represents this area, Bill Clinton has taken the stage to the usual screams of pleasure. Sestak says he's here to introduce "the next spouse of the next president of the United States." A retired admiral, Sestak worked in the White House for President Clinton and is telling the crowd why he supports Hillary Clinton. He says that it comes down to this: She cares, she has vision, she understands the political process.

Bill says he's a little tired after coming back from three stops in Wyoming yesterday. And he sounds it. He's off to a fish-fry in Mississippi tonight. So he says he's just going to talk, not give a "big whoop-dee-doo." Once he gets started, though, the man has a hard time stopping.
He begins by saying, as he's said before, that he'd be campaigning for Hillary even if he weren't married to her. Then he talks about one of his favorite subjects -- how the country has gone into the toilet economically in the last seven years. Electing her, he says, will lead to "more jobs, higher income and more broadly shared prosperity" than in the good old days of the 1990s when, you may recall, he was president.

The man just loves to get into the nitty-gritty of the issues. First, he gives a long explanation of Hillary's plans to make America more energy-independent, saying that she knows that doing so is the "heart and soul of our responsibility," both to increase prosperity and reduce global-warming. Next, he turns to health care, and the reason why her plan, which would cover all Americans one way or another, is superior to Barack Obama's, which doesn't mandate coverage for all people. "Here's the fact," he says. "You can't control the cost of health care, which is doubling, unless you cover everyone." People aren't cheering ecstatically -- some of this stuff is pretty dry -- but they do seem to be listening.

Bill just finished an extended dissertation on the details of her education plan. Now, he's talking about her qualifications of be commander-in-chief. And he says there's one issue on which Hillary is "more conservative than President Bush. She believes in balanced budgets. She believes that mortgaging our children's future is morally strong and economically stupid." He compliments the crowd for hanging with him as he talks about all the details. Finally, a broader point. He says that she's a change-maker, and takes an implied slap at Obama: "The substance of change is even more important than the symbolism of change. The fact of change is even more important then the feeling of change."

He's done. For someone who admitted to being tired, this was quite a performance, 45 minutes long. He finished by saying, "I have nothing bad to say about anybody else. But she'd be the best president, and Pennsylvania can make her the next president."