Hillary Ready to Pull the Plug?

Take it with a grain of salt. Could just be some rope-a-dope. Consider now, if she wins by a blowout as expected in West Virginia, why bother? Or maybe she'd like to go out on top, so to speak, save some face, and come back in 2012.

As the former First Lady met voters at three events in West Virginia, attention turned to how she could make a graceful exit from a gruelling, 17-month contest.

She carried on campaigning despite confessions from senior staff that winning the Democratic Party’s nomination was a near impossibility and that her campaign was $21 million (£10 million) in debt.

Her financial problems, if nothing else, may force her to bow out after ending on a high note in West Virginia, where she is expected to beat Senator Barack Obama by a landslide in Tuesday's primary contest.

Speaking to voters in the Appalachian state, she said: “All the kitchen table issues that everybody talks to me about are ones that the next president can actually do something about, if he actually cares about it.” Realising her faux pas, she added: “More likely if she cares about it!”

Though Mrs Clinton continues to make her case as the best next president of the US, she has noticeably softened her tone on Mr Obama in the past few days, after weeks of direct attacks on his readiness for the White House. She also much less regularly peppers her speeches with the phrase “When I am president...” - another sign that her inner conviction is fading.