KEY POINTS:
A determined - possibly deluded - Hillary Clinton gave no hint yesterday of preparing to concede the race for the Democratic nomination, vigorously pursuing votes across South Dakota in the closing hours of this protracted primary season even as her foe, Barack Obama, stood within striking distance of the prize.
Rather than pausing to ponder harsh truths, Mrs Clinton continued to pour her energies into battle as South Dakota and Montana today become the last states to hold primary elections. Her website directed visitors instantly to a page soliciting more funds under a headline: "Keep the Momentum Going!"
The time for a reality check will come today, however, as five months of stumping finally ends.
Mrs Clinton will huddle with advisers and her husband, Bill Clinton, in her Chappaqua home in New York before addressing supporters in a college gym in Manhattan. As she awakes, even she may still not know whether her speech will be one of defiance or concession.
Aides to Mr Obama are predicting he will amass the number of delegates needed formally to claim victory if not after the votes are counted tonight then later this week if a substantial number of superdelegates step forward to side with him.
Expected to win both Montana and South Dakota, Mr Obama may even declare himself the nominee at a rally in St Paul, Minnesota, tonight. Mr Obama is a mere 45 delegates away from the 2,118 needed to clinch the nomination, according to an Associated Press tally.
But the last two contests in their marathon primary offer just 31 delegates. In South Dakota's farm country, Mrs Clinton was greeted by modest but adoring crowds.
But behind her mask of calm simmered profound frustration. She scored an overwhelming victory in Puerto Rico on Sunday and has won four out of the last six primaries. Yet if she has run a more than respectable final lap, it has all come too late to help her to catch up.
It is of little consolation that on Sunday night, Mr Obama congratulated her by phone for her Puerto Rico win or that speaking in South Dakota he praised her campaign and predicted she would become a "great asset" in November.
All hope of salvation for Mrs Clinton may have vanished on Saturday when the party's rules committee declined to heed her request that delegates from the disputed primaries of Michigan and Florida be reinstated with full voting rights.
Her target audience yesterday was less the supporters at her three stops here (beginning in Rapid City and winding up with an eve-of-election rally in Sioux Falls) and more the superdelegates who are still on the fence.
She asserted that, the delegate count notwithstanding, she will end up with more popular votes than Mr Obama and would therefore make the stronger nominee. "Nearly 18 million people have stood with us, the most votes cast for a candidate in the history of presidential primaries in either party," she said. "We've defied the sceptics and answered an important question: 'Which candidate best represents the will of the people?'
"Her popular vote claim is questionable, however, because she is counting Michigan towards her popular vote total, where Mr Obama neither campaigned nor was even on the ballot. She is also taking no account of her rival's successes in states that voted by caucus.
Yet when the trumpets sound for Mr Obama this week, their tone will be reed-thin. He is crawling across the finishing line after suffering numerous recent losses and a poor record of attracting white, blue-collar voters. He now faces the difficult challenge of reuniting a party that has been cleaved in two by his rivalry with Mrs Clinton.
Winning the hearts of her supporters will not be easy. It remains technically possible for Mrs Clinton still to prevail by persuading dithering superdelegates that she would indeed be the stronger candidate against John McCain. She has even hinted at leaning on superdelegates currently committed to Mr Obama to defect back to her.
All this may be cloud-cuckoo territory, however, as the flow of superdelegates remains in the other direction. Mrs Clinton may be tempted to maintain a shadow candidacy in the hope that some catastrophe, political or other, befalls Mr Obama serious enough to persuade delegates at the party's August convention to ditch him and proclaim her their saviour.
The speed with which the party leaders have turned their backs on the Clinton dynasty has shocked her lieutenants, herself and her husband. But they can hardly ignore it.
"Most Clinton supporters are filled with bewilderment that this is happening," said Ed Rendell, the Governor of Pennsylvania and staunch Clinton backer.
"We are willing to go on and we understand the inevitability of this but we are filled with disappointment and amazement."
- INDEPENDENT
