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Perhaps more than anyone else, the campus newspaper, the Stanford Daily, has set the standard for Chelsea overprotection. It has declared the Chelsea beat off-limits and spent most of the past few months refusing comment to every media outlet that ever existed (Good Morning America alone called five times). Overcompensating in its Friday issue, it buried the Chelsea story behind four others, right after STUDENT SENTENCED IN GRAFFITI CASE. Yet Carolyn Sleeth, the editor in chief, not only has a picture of Chelsea as the sole decoration on her computer; she also has a roll of Chelsea-brand toilet paper planted on her desk. Like it or not, Chelsea is news.
In fact, a little industry emerged around the First Frosh. Senior Jesse Oxfeld, a former Daily editor, has worked feverishly to market himself as the official Chelsea pundit, appearing on the Today show, CBS, MSNBC and NPR. Husky, chest hair peeking up from his button-down shirt and punctuating sentences with one raised eyebrow, Oxfeld looks the part. "Ultimately, I want to be a pundit. But I didn't know where to find an entry-level job." Making the most of his opportunity, he has got his lines all worked out. "If I really wanted to be cynical about it," he says about Clinton's arrival on campus, lifting that eyebrow, "Al Gore needs the 64 electoral votes from California, and Leon Panetta wants to be Governor." Wow.
How much "Chelsea Goes to Stanford" can the country really take? "Hopefully," says Oxfeld, preparing for another gig on NBC, "a lot." But already the cameras are receding. And last week's public move-in may be the last story for a long while.
--With reporting by Karen Tumulty/Washington