HAVERFORD, Pa. -- With her mother and her daughter at her side, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton campaigned in the Philadelphia suburbs yesterday, territory considered by both sides a key battleground in the looming Pennsylvania primary.

The day after her hard-edged debate with Sen. Barack Obama, Mrs. Clinton projected a softer, more nurturing image as she showcased a variety of family-friendly proposals, including expanded family medical leave, tax credits for long-term medical care and a call for a joint state and federal effort to add a paid leave component to existing family and medical leave programs.

Mrs. Clinton spoke before an invited audience of about 300 on the campus of Haverford College. Like her rival, Mrs. Clinton had taken a break for the campaign trail yesterday morning for a meeting in Washington with British Prime Minister Gordon Brown.

Later she was scheduled to appear at a rally in Northeast Philadelphia and at a meeting of Jewish community leaders in Center City. After his meeting with the prime minister, Mr. Obama was campaigning in North Carolina before a return to the Pennsylvania tomorrow and a cross-state swing that was to begin in Erie.

"The Pennsylvania primary falls on a very significant date for two reasons," Mrs. Clinton told her Haverford audience. "April 22 is Earth Day and it is also Equal Pay Day."

She decried a gender wage gap under which woman, on average, still receive on 77 cents on the dollar compared to men, an imbalance that she said was even more acute for African-American women, for whom it is 68 cents on the dollar.

Taking questions from the audience, she dealt with topics including Hurricane Katrina, immigration, and the environment.

She praised Republican Sen. John McCain for breaking ranks with some of his GOP colleagues by joining the call for more effective action on the environment, but she said she would do more, including taking a personal role in crafting a post-Kyoto accord on global warming.

To a questioner who asked what he should say to prospective voters while canvassing for her over the campaign's final weekend, she said, "You know, just knock on the door and say, 'She's really nice,' or, you could say, 'She's not as bad as you think.' "