PHILADELPHIA -- Like a pair of pied pipers, Chelsea Clinton and Gov. Ed Rendell led a stream of gay and lesbian Philadelphians from bar to bar on a four-stop pub crawl that lasted well past midnight Friday.

They gathered more followers as they went, walking beneath fluttering rainbow flags. The goal: to drum up support for Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton from what many see as an important constituency.

Revelers at Sisters bar, gathered beneath bouquets of rainbow balloons, sipped martinis and wrapped their arms around their partners to listen to Ms. Clinton, who told them her mother would make an even better president than her father.

"She's more prepared than he was, and she's more progressive than he was," she said in two-minute speech. "I know my mother would be the best president of my lifetime, and the president that all of our children deserve."

She delivered a similar message at Bump, Tavern on Carmac and Woody's in the city's heavily gay section.

"For a candidate to [send surrogates] to a gay bar in 2004, it just wouldn't have happened. Gay was a wedge issue," said Jeff Guarcino, 35, who was among the crowd at Bumps. "We've gone from being shunned to being courted."

Mrs. Clinton and her opponent, Illinois Sen. Barack Obama, have similar stances on issues important to the gay community, although she supports gay marriage and he favors civil unions.

"I've been clear. I'm a supporter of civil unions and a strong supporter of non-employment discrimination," Mr. Obama said yesterday in an interview with the Post-Gazette. "I'm opposed to [the military's] don't-ask-don't-tell policy."

Still, Mr. Obama has not reached out to the gay community as much as Mrs. Clinton -- and the Philadelphia bar crowd has noticed.

Instead, he has gone outside that community to faith groups and others. "One of the defining moments of this campaign was when he went to an African-American church in Atlanta and talked about gay rights, telling them, 'Come on, you've got to get on board with this," Obama campaign spokesman Sean Smith said yesterday.

Kevin Carraccio, a 33-year-old gay Philadelphian, said Mr. Obama seems disingenuous. "I just don't get the feeling he's a real inclusive kind of guy," Mr. Carraccio said.

Mrs. Clinton is smart to target gay voters, said Mr. Rendell. "These are smart, sophisticated voters, and they turn out in large numbers and always have," he said.