Bill Clinton spent yesterday morning scrabbling around in the dirt, digging holes with his bare hands in front of a handful of bemused onlookers while his face went bright red.

Critics might say, probably unfairly, that this is how the former president has conducted himself during much of his wife’s bid for the Democratic nomination. But what was really striking about his appearance at Woodlawn Elementary School in Portland yesterday was just how low-key this once furious campaign has become.

Hillary Clinton is still a ferocious fighter but her biggest punches are increasingly reserved for the media that has written her off – and not for Barack Obama.

She is spending what little of her campaign money is left on TV adverts showing images of the pundits who have declared the race over. The voice-over says solemnly: “In Washington, they talk about who’s up and who’s down. In Oregon, we care about what’s right and what’s wrong.”

She has, however, cut short her planned itinerary in Oregon, where the primary tomorrow represents perhaps her final hope of achieving a head-turning result.

Instead, Mrs Clinton is concentrating on Kentucky’s primary tomorrow, which is likely to follow its rural Appalachian, white-dominated, neighbour West Virginia in giving her a resounding victory – but one already being prespun as irrelevant in the face of Mr Obama's lengthening delegate lead.

The Clinton campaign’s effort in Oregon has now been left to her husband and her daughter, Chelsea, who both turned up to help build a community garden for the “I Have a Dream” Foundation. Mr Clinton, clad in jeans and black T-shirt, told the audience of a few dozen that it was just the sort of programme that would be expanded “if Hillary wins”. It never used to be regarded as such a hypothetical, nor such a distant, dream.

There were some true believers present, refusing to contemplate even the prospect of defeat. Others seemed unsure as to why they were there. Arthur Dworkin, 75, said: “I think it’s time for this to stop. I admire Bill and wanted to see him in person but Hillary really has no chance of winning now.”

The Clintons will make more important speeches to larger crowds before this race is over. Mr Obama was just half an hour up the road in Gresham delivering a big presidential-style speech on social security, and a few hours later he addressed a crowd of up to 60,000 in Portland.

Mr Obama has marked out tomorrow as the date when he will claim a majority of elected delegates. He will await the result at a rally in Iowa, which is not only where the nomination process kicked off four long months ago but also – his aides point out – an overwhelmingly white state which voted for him.

Mrs Clinton, campaigning at a rally at the Maker’s Mark Bourbon distillery in Kentucky at the weekend, railed against “those people on TV” telling her to quit. “You don't quit on people and you don’t quit until you finish what you started and you don’t quit on America.”

She has, however, almost given up mentioning her rival by name, except to defend him against attacks from Republicans. Whereas she used to criticise Mr Obama’s policy of talking with rogue states, she spent much of the weekend saying President Bush’s comparison of this same plan with “appeasement” was “really outrageous”.

Her debts are growing but the campaign itself is shrinking: the crowds are older and weirder than before while the travelling press pack that hounded her for so long is slinking away. Yesterday it was reported that her top fundraisers were talking to counterparts from the Obama team about how they can help in November’s general election.

On Mrs Clinton’s aircraft, a three-foot long model made from balloons of Mrs Clinton is reported to have become deflated and shrivelled. Her husband yesterday dug holes for six tomato plants, but told schoolchildren not to put them in too deep. “You have got to be careful, or you’ll bury them,” he said.

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