Millvale has made news in recent years for its flooding, but yesterday Democrats there gushed over former President Bill Clinton on the first of four small-town campaign stops as he skipped across the state in the run-up to tomorrow's Pennsylvania primary.

The morning's political service in what was once a Catholic church and is now a concert hall known as Mr. Small's drew more than 300 of the Clinton faithful who left singing his, and his wife's, praises after just a 12-minute speech. He spent almost as much time shaking hands and signing autographs afterward as he moved slowly toward a side exit.

"Just awesome," said Johnna Zacharias of Etna, after hearing the former president give a standard stump speech in which he established Hillary Rodham Clinton's Pennsylvania bona fides -- the Scranton birth and the family's Penn State University football team connections -- touched on all the health care and economic buttons, and chided unnamed "elitists" for saying Hillary can't win.

"When I see him I feel he's presidential, dynamic," said Ms. Zacharias as she put together a handful of "Hillary" yard signs she'd just been given outside the club. "And she has the ability to make a good world for my kids, so they can go to college and have a better life."

Ed Wirkowski, a Millvale councilman and retired Pittsburgh policeman who said he was part of a police detail that guarded Mr. Clinton when he visited Pittsburgh in the early 1990s, said he is a Hillary supporter even though she and Sen. Barack Obama have similar positions on most issues.

"They're almost the same," Mr. Wirkowski said. "The big thing is that we need a Democrat in the White House, though I don't know if one is better than the other. I think she has more experience."

Frank Galioto, a Millvale insurance broker, said Mrs. Clinton had "lowered the boom" on Mr. Obama in Wednesday's debate and that it showed he was too young and inexperienced to be president.

"I got the feeling the Republicans would make soup meat out of him," Mr. Galioto said. "He's running for a very important position and I think some number of voters may be reluctant to vote for him. If he [Obama] is nominated I'll vote for McCain."

Donna Kurzawski, who along with her 11-year-old daughter, Camille, shook hands with the former president, said seeing him clinched her vote.

"I'd been going back and forth, but what he said about the economy and her position on health care is important," Mrs. Kurzawski said. "And the war, ending it, is high on my list too."

"I think it's really neat to have a woman running," said Camille Kurzawski. "She's the first to get this far. I'm a supporter."

As he was about to climb into a car to leave, the former president stopped, then slipped across the street to plant a kiss on the right cheek of May Mayhugh, who was sitting on her porch.

"He asked how I was and I said I've been very sick. He gave me a hug and kissed me right here on the cheek," said Ms. Mayhugh, 85, who said she is a registered Democrat, and would be making it to the polls Tuesday despite a recent stroke. "I'm not going to wash that cheek for a while."