SCRANTON -- Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York got a raucous welcome from her father's old neighbors yesterday as she kicked off her Democratic presidential drive for the delegates and big-state momentum that Pennsylvania will award in six weeks.

Striding onto a stage in the packed Scranton High School gymnasium, under a banner reading, "Welcome Home Hillary," Mrs. Clinton offered an amalgam of politics and nostalgia to a crowd of more than 2,000.

The noisy partisans, who cheered her repeated references to local landmarks and institutions, were the lucky survivors of a line that wound four-wide for hundreds of yards around the school property. An overflow crowd of hundreds more was steered to the school's auditorium and library, where sound from Mrs. Clinton's remarks was piped in, and where she made a brief appearance after the rally next door.

Pennsylvania offers Mrs. Clinton the chance to complete the big-state trifecta that began with her game-changing victories last week in Ohio and Texas. She was to continue her cross-state swing today, with rallies in Harrisburg and Philadelphia.

Mrs. Clinton was accompanied yesterday by Gov. Ed Rendell and Lt. Gov. Catherine Baker Knoll. Their presence highlighted the early advantage she holds over her rival, Illinois Sen. Barack Obama, in the support of the state's political establishment.

But it was personal ties and memories that Mrs. Clinton and her crowd reveled in during a half-hour speech interrupted by repeated waves of applause. The litany of issues from her standard stump speech was interspersed with her references to family vacations and memories rooted in this hard-coal country.

"Some of you know that my grandfather came to Scranton when he was 3 years old," she said, recalling that he went to work in a local lace mill when he was 11 years old, spending his entire lifetime working in the mill. She remembered that before winning a football scholarship to Penn State, her grandfather played in the "Dream Game," an annual all-star contest that pits players from Scranton high schools against those from surrounding communities.

She described her own August vacations in the cottage her grandfather built on nearby Lake Winola as a childhood idyll of horseback riding, swimming and movies projected on a sheet by the lake shore. "It was a great place to be a kid," she said. "You were basically just told to leave after breakfast and come home for dinner."

Turning to more recent history, Mrs. Clinton alluded to her husband's presidential administration as a model for how she would deal with the economy. "It wasn't so long ago that we were creating ... good jobs," she said. "The 1990s were good years for Pennsylvania."

She offered a rhetorical question for critics who question her repeated references to that administration. "And I say, which part of the '90s don't you want to go back to -- peace? Or prosperity?"

Former Scranton Mayor James McNulty said this region would be a key asset for Mrs. Clinton. "She'll do well here," he said. "If you heard the speech, there wasn't a spot or a base she didn't touch."

David Bieri, principal of Scranton's Robert Morris Elementary School, said Mrs. Clinton's speech might end up luring him to her camp. "I came here as an Obama supporter. My children are 100 percent Clinton supporters," he said. "After hearing her speak, I'm on the fence. Now, I'm waiting to hear some more specifics."

The educator was swayed by Mrs. Clinton's critique of the No Child Left Behind schools program and was eager to learn more about how she would change it.

After two weeks of sometimes-tough exchanges between the Democratic presidential contenders, Mrs. Clinton made no mention yesterday of her primary opponent, Mr. Obama. Her Scranton speech also made no reference to today's voting in Mississippi, where Mr. Obama is expected to notch another victory after his weekend win in the Wyoming caucuses.

Mr. Obama was to return to Pennsylvania today for an appearance at a plant in Bucks County, one of the ring of suburban counties surrounding Philadelphia that figures to be among the most hotly contested battlegrounds of the campaign.

Mrs. Clinton brought shouts from the Scranton crowd when she told them that she planned to return to their city this weekend for its legendary St. Patrick's Day Parade. "I need your help over the next weeks," she said. "I think that northeastern Pennsylvania is the key to my winning the Keystone State."