CHELSEA MOVES INTO SPOTLIGHT DURING '96 CAMPAIGN.

Byline: James Bennet The New York Times

``Oh, have you seen Chelsea at all tonight?'' Hillary Rodham Clinton asked her husband on the telephone Tuesday night, in a scene broadcast live on NBC-TV after her speech. ``Oh, she looks so pretty.''

Americans have seen plenty of Chelsea Clinton this week. Shielded from press and the public for four years, she has emerged, without a public word, as a formidable political weapon for her parents.

For two days she stood and waved beside President Clinton as his train rumbled through Midwestern news media markets. Then she came to Chicago for her mother's prime-time television speech Tuesday.

As the first lady repeatedly referred to her daughter - six times by name and several more times by implication - the television networks' cameras darted over and over to Chelsea, clapping and smiling broadly in the stands. ``For Bill and me,'' Clinton said, ``there has been no experience more challenging, more rewarding and more humbling than raising our daughter.''

And, political analysts said, there may be no better testimony than Chelsea, who is 16, to Clinton's values and maturity - and to Bob Dole's relative age. Dole's daughter, Robin, by his first marriage, is 41. Bob and Elizabeth Dole have no children.

``It emphasizes the generational advantage that Clinton has in this election,'' said Alex Castellanos, a Republican media consultant, ``that he's going to be looking after kids in the next century. And it subtly points out that Bob Dole isn't.''

But Castellanos said it was perfectly legitimate for the Clintons to showcase their daughter.

``There are so many doubts and concerns about his maturity,'' Castellanos said, ``and yet on the other hand he seems to have done such a great job raising a young lady.''

George Stephanopoulos, the senior White House adviser, said Wednesday that it was only natural for Chelsea to attend her mother's address. ``I think you would say there was something wrong if she wasn't in the hall,'' he said. He said Chelsea had been making more appearances with her parents over the past year, adding, ``And it's been her choice.''

By all accounts, Chelsea is poised, polite and thoughtful. White House ground rules prevent reporters from interviewing or quoting her, a policy that has permitted her to mingle with them more freely than she might have otherwise. On the Clintons' vacation in Jackson, Wyo., in 1995, she was a surprise guest at a dinner with journalists, and tried to give a reporter $20 for her pizza.

At the dinner, National Park Service officials presented Chelsea with a commemorative Smokey Bear doll, and she refused to leave until learning where to mail a thank-you note.

The Clintons have been zealous, almost ferocious, in protecting her privacy. In an interview broadcast Sunday, CNN reporter Wolf Blitzer asked Clinton what he would say if Chelsea came home and announced she was pregnant.

``Well, first of all, I want to compliment you and the other members of the press corps for permitting me to have a private family life and permitting my daughter to have a private life,'' Clinton replied. ``And, I think, if I were to answer that question in just the way you asked it, I would be violating the very thing that I've asked you to give her.''

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Photo: Chelsea Clinton waves to supporters Monday in Columb us, Ohio.

Associated Press