Senator Obama praised Senator Clinton on her home turf last night, calling his potential rival for the Democratic presidential nomination a “friend and an ally” and saying he disagreed with critics who say the former first lady is unelectable.

“I have the utmost respect for Hillary Clinton,” the Illinois senator told reporters after a speech at a children’s charity benefit in Midtown. He added: “I think she is tough. I think she is disciplined. I think she is smart. I am not one of those people who believe that she can’t win. I think she could win if she ran, and she is an extraordinarily able person.”

Yet even in lauding Mrs. Clinton, Mr. Obama offered a glimpse of the case he could make to Democratic voters if he faces her in a primary. Saying the country rejected President Bush’s “sharply ideological approach to governing” during last month’s midterm elections, Mr. Obama said voters were “waiting for a different approach to politics and a different approach to governing.” The Democratic candidate who offers “alternatives based on common sense, pragmatism, and cooperation” will serve the party well in 2008, he said.

While Mrs. Clinton is seen as a frontrunner for the Democratic nomination, some political analysts have said she is too polarizing a figure to win a general election and that voters may be looking for a fresh face in 2008, a role that could be filled by Mr. Obama, a relative newcomer to national politics who emerged as a top draw stumping for Democratic candidates across the country this fall.

Both senators have said they are considering a presidential bid, but neither has formally announced a run nor formed an exploratory committee to officially test the waters. Mr. Obama, who met earlier yesterday with potential donors in the city, will appear in New Hampshire, an early primary state, on Sunday, while Mrs. Clinton in recent days has reached out to party leaders in New York to line up support for her own bid.

Mr. Obama made no mention of a presidential campaign in a subdued, 20-minute speech at the Mandarin Oriental Hotel yesterday, but he invoked the names of Robert F. Kennedy and President Reagan in issuing policy proposals to help alleviate child hunger and poverty. The senator gave the keynote address at a fund-raiser for Kids in Distressed Situations and Fashion Delivers, both charities that aid children in need.

Saying “it’s time for a sense of empathy to infuse our politics in America,” Mr. Obama called for an increase in the minimum wage, an expansion of the earned income tax credit, and the passage of federal legislation to help fathers who pay child support and to provide more funding for enforcing penalties against those who don’t.

The senator said after the speech that he supported elevating the federal minimum wage to “somewhere over $7 an hour.” It is currently $5.15. The issue is expected to be one of the first that Democrats take up when they assume control of the House and Senate in January.

Touching on a subject about which he has written extensively, Mr. Obama spoke about the “empathy deficit,” a phrase he uses to describe Americans who view poverty-stricken children from a distance, without “the ability to see the world through somebody else’s eyes.” But he also appealed for individual responsibility in addressing problems that may contribute to poverty, such as single-parent homes and fathers who don’t pay child support. “We can’t end child poverty through government programs alone,” Mr. Obama said. He added later: “Government can’t legislate responsibility.”

Speaking to reporters after the speech, Mr. Obama waded into a thorny local political issue: the fatal police shooting in Queens of an apparently unarmed man. Following the lead of Mayor Bloomberg, Mr. Obama said the firing of 50 shots “without a gun visible strikes me as excessive.” He said police have a difficult job and are often under stress, but “when we give them a monopoly on power and violence and firearms in our society, we hope and we expect that they’re going to operate with restraint.”