COLUMBUS, Ohio – Should Senator Clinton be considered the sole rightful heir to her husband’s political legacy as a “New Democrat”?

That was the lingering question yesterday as the annual policy conference of a group of centrist Democrats was transformed into a showcase for Mrs. Clinton and three other politicians seen as possible candidates for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2008.

Participants in the Democratic Leadership Council’s “National Conversation” were treated to consecutive speeches from Mrs. Clinton, Senator Bayh of Indiana, Governor Vilsack of Iowa, and Governor Warner of Virginia.

All appeared eager to follow in the footsteps of President Clinton, who used the council to position himself as a moderate who favored innovative policy approaches and was not beholden to special interests.

As she rained criticism on the Republican establishment, Mrs. Clinton deftly laid title to one of her husband’s most famous political metaphors.

“After more than four years of Republican control, our government has not only gone off track, it has reversed course. They’ve turned our bridge to the 21st century into a tunnel back to the 19th century,” Mrs. Clinton said. “The Republican Party is busy concentrating wealth and power, restricting opportunity, and abandoning responsibility for our shared future.”

Mrs. Clinton called for more unity among Democrats. “Let’s start by uniting against the hard-right ideology of those who have used it to divide Americans and distract us from our common responsibilities. We Democrats have not yet succeeded in isolating and defeating the far right, in part because all too often we have allowed ourselves to be split between left, right, and center,” she said. “What separates us on occasion is but a tiny sliver in comparison to the Grand Canyon gap between us and the Republican Party.”

Mrs. Clinton also set forth the litany of socially conservative points that are part of her regular repertoire, such as a call to reduce the number of abortions and to protect children from destructive forces in popular culture. At moments, she voiced themes that sounded downright conservative. “We can restore America to its historic devotion to opportunity, responsibility, and the common good, with big dreams, new ideas, and old-fashioned values,” the senator said.

At yesterday’s session, Mr. Vilsack officially took the reins of the Democratic group. He faulted President Bush for failing to involve average Americans in the war effort in Afghanistan and Iraq. “Have we been asked to sacrifice, to change, to commit in any way?” the Iowa governor asked. “Is it right? Is it fair? Is it the American way to ask a small sliver of our society to bear the full responsibility?”

Turning to social issues, Mr. Vilsack said parents need to be convinced that Democrats deplore the “violence and the sex and hyper-commercialization that is bombarding their children.

“We must say to those moms and dads, ‘We are with you,'” he said.

The governor also counseled Democrats not to be consumed by their anger over the loss of last year’s presidential race. “It’s easy to be angry. It’s easy to say, ‘They should have done this. You should have done that,'” Mr. Vilsack said. “We could literally hold our breath until the red states turn blue but that’s not going to affect the lives of Americans.”

One school of thought popular in some Democratic circles blames the party’s recent woes on a failure to communicate or “frame” complex issues. However, Mr. Vilsack and other speakers flatly rejected the notion that Americans were somehow tricked into voting for Republicans.

“We can no longer say people are voting against their interests. I can’t understand it,” the governor said. “Who are we to say what a person’s interests may be?”

As Mr. Vilsack took charge of the Democratic Leadership Council yesterday, the group also announced Mrs. Clinton will take an official role with the organization, as chairwoman of the council’s “American Dream Initiative.” Descriptions of the new initiative were amorphous and generally tracked with the purpose of the larger group, which is to promote new and innovative policy ideas.

During a meeting with reporters, Mr. Vilsack said the idea of creating a position for Mrs. Clinton originated with the council’s staff. “She’s been very nuts and bolts and policy-oriented,” Mr. Vilsack said. “It’s something that plays to her strengths, and clearly she brings an added seriousness and dimension to the effort that will allow people to pay more attention to it.”

The vague descriptions of Mrs. Clinton’s new post led some to wonder whether the appointment was simply a way to avoid the council being seen entirely as a vehicle for Mr. Vilsack’s future ambitions. He denied any such considerations. “I have no clue as to what I’m going to be doing in 2007 and 2008,” the governor said.

In his remarks yesterday, Mr. Bayh stressed the need for Democrats to change the public’s view of the party’s attitude toward defending America. Many voters “have concluded that we don’t have the spine or the backbone to use force even in the most compelling of circumstances,” Mr. Bayh said. “We Democrats have always known that this is a perilous world and there is evil in it.”

The senator of Indiana accused Mr. Bush of taking a cavalier approach that undermined the war on terror. “We can do better than the false bravado of ‘Bring ’em on,'” Mr. Bayh said.

Among all the presidential hopefuls, the speech from the Virginia governor, Mr. Warner, offered the most specifics. He talked about programs his state has implemented to offer experienced teachers bonuses of up to $15,000 to teach in underperforming schools. Mr. Warner said the state also partnered with a popular stock car racing circuit, Nascar, to encourage adults who never finished high school to obtain their general equivalency degrees, or GEDs.

Some of Mr. Warner’s rhetoric seemed specifically aimed at differentiating himself from Mrs. Clinton. He mentioned the need for candidates with broad appeal in Middle America, saying, “We Democrats neglect the heartland at our own peril.”

The governor also suggested that the policies of the Clinton administration might not offer the answers to current problems, like intense competition from low-wage countries such as China and India. “Sometimes even the solutions that we offered in the 1990s aren’t enough,” he said.

In the past, the council was known for its strong stance in favor of free trade. However, politicians and the public have grown increasingly wary of open trade agreements. Trade was mentioned yesterday largely in passing, and always accompanied by prominent warnings about the consequences of bad trade deals.

Mr. Vilsack acknowledged that the group is struggling to find new ways to advocate for free trade. He said some people see only the high-profile job losses and not the incremental benefits. “That really complicates the trade debate and makes it difficult for politicians to vote for trade agreements,” he said.

The potential candidates and their staffs were treated to a first-hand reminder of how Mrs. Clinton’s sheer star power threatens to skew any race for the nomination. The senator’s delivery yesterday was strong, but far from her most electric. Yet, as soon as she finished her remarks, she was deluged by members of the crowd eager for autographs and to take photos. Television crews rushed off the platform in an effort to capture any words of wisdom she might offer as she shook hands with well-wishers. By the time Mr. Warner took the stage later in the afternoon, only a handful of reporters and cameras were left.

“It’s tough being a Tom Vilsack or an Evan Bayh when you’re facing that sort of challenge,” one conference attendee said, as he gazed at the hordes pushing toward Mrs. Clinton.

However, others in attendance said the former first lady faces an uphill battle to be seen as a candidate who can be embraced in the so-called red states. “The real question is, can she convince the middle of the country she’s not a classic liberal,” an adviser to technology entrepreneurs, James Hurd of San Francisco, said. “If she can’t do that, she’s in trouble.”