HARRISBURG -- Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton ventured into the GOP heart of Pennsylvania yesterday with a stop in Harrisburg, where she was enthusiastically received by a crowd that included heavy representation from Lancaster County, the state's most conservative area.

In a 40-minute speech, she outlined plans to dismantle President Bush's No Child Left Behind Act, bring troops home from Iraq, make health care more affordable and sign the embryonic stem-cell research bill that President Bush vetoed last year.

"Throughout my campaign, I have been very specific about what I want to do as president," Mrs. Clinton told a boisterous crowd of more than 2,000 in the Forum, home of the Harrisburg Symphony Orchestra. "I want you to be voting on the basis of who you believe will be our best president, who can be commander in chief on Day 1."

Her campaign continually has stressed the former first lady's experience in the White House, but detractors have said that being married to the head of state does not equate to having presidential experience.

Mrs. Clinton did not mention Sen. Barack Obama by name in her remarks, but nonetheless attacked her primary opponent's recent remarks about free trade agreements and the Iraq war as disingenuous.

"I've been saying I will start to withdraw our troops [from Iraq] within 60 days. My opponent has said that he'll have them all out within 16 months, and then one of his top foreign policy advisers tells the foreign press, 'Don't pay any attention to that. That's just talk during the campaign,'" she said.

Mrs. Clinton also slammed Mr. Obama for campaigning on a pro-alternative-energy platform despite voting in 2005 for a Bush administration energy policy that provided subsidies to oil companies.

"There's a big difference between talk and action. When you talk, you ought to mean what you say so people can count on it," Mrs. Clinton told the roaring crowd. "I come with experience, and you can look at it. You can see the results. You can see the work I've done."

That experience is essential to fielding a successful candidate on the Democratic ticket, said Harrisburg's Democratic mayor, Stephen Reed, who introduced Mrs. Clinton.

Presumptive Republican nominee Sen. John McCain of Arizona "is a good man and there is zero, zero doubt that the central theme of his campaign will be his experience," Mr. Reed said. "We cannot allow us to be vulnerable on this point. We cannot allow doubt to undermine the outcome. Experience does count."

The Clinton campaign announced last night that Mrs. Clinton's daughter, Chelsea, will be in Pittsburgh today, hosting an event called "Our Voice, Our Future" at 5:15 p.m. at Point Park University. The event will be in the atrium of University Center, 414 Wood St., Downtown. Chelsea Clinton also is scheduled to make appearances earlier in the day at Wilkes University in Wilkes-Barre and at noon at Lebanon Valley College in Annville.

Nathan Kenyon, 16, who was in the Harrisburg audience yesterday, said he was ready for a Democratic president. At age 12, he worked on Sen. John F. Kerry's presidential campaign and has been supporting Democrats ever since.

"Something's got to change," said Nathan, who took the day off from Lower Dauphin High School for the Clinton event.

His father, Allen Kenyon, 51, of Dauphin County, is a longtime Republican, but agreed to take his left-leaning son to the Clinton rally.

"I'm just here to listen. Her health care policy scares me. It's going to destroy the health care industry," Mr. Kenyon said. "If the government regulates it, it's going to be rationed."

Mrs. Clinton's proposal would allow uninsured and underinsured Americans to join the same health plan provided to members of Congress.

"I have met too many people who have been denied health insurance when they get sick," Mrs. Clinton said. She said she has met others who have insurance but are denied coverage for medications and treatments their doctors say they need.

"What good does it do to have an insurance policy that doesn't pay for what they need?" she asked. "Insurance companies discriminate against you if you're sick. We're going to end that."

That was good news to Crystal Wissler, who was in the audience with her 5-year-old granddaughter Zoe Egolf. "I like how she fights for American women, for mothers, for working, struggling people and for all Americans who need a voice. She is change," said Ms. Wissler, 43, of Harrisburg.

Eva Cooper thinks so, too. Then again, she'd agree with just about anything pro-Hillary.

"Whatever that woman says, I'm with her," said Ms. Cooper, 74, of suburban Harrisburg. "She's intelligent, she has charisma and she is a change from the Bush administration."