weeks will most likely see this turn into a steady stream.

Mrs Clinton's financial crisis is now acute and by late Tuesday the hot story was that her closest advisors are already in secret negotiations with the Obama camp, offering a deal. She will withdraw from the race on condition that Obama pays off her campaign debt, which may now be nearing $25m; also that he makes her his running-mate in the fall.

Obama could certainly offer some sort of financial bail-out as the price for Mrs Clinton to step out of the race. His campaign has plenty of money. But would he offer her the vice-presidential nomination? That's harder to envisage.

For two months the Clintons have tried to destroy Obama with a toxic mixture of racist innuendo and flag-wagging. There's a great deal of bad blood. If Obama does invite Mrs Clinton aboard it will be because his strategists tell him it's the only way he can beat the Republican, John McCain. That case has yet to be made.

It may happen in the next few days or at a slightly later date, but Mrs Clinton will surely concede. Defeat was certainly written all over the face of her spouse, who looked ghastly yesterday, just as on the other half of the television screen Obama was already speaking in lofty and magnanimous terms about Democratic unity. He will need all the composure he can muster. The autumn campaign will be an ugly one.

It's a propitious year for the first black presidential candidate to try to win the White House. The Republican incumbent, George Bush, is widely despised. McCain is old, erratic and won't release his medical records. The economy is in awful shape and the war is unpopular. Her pro-war vote played a big role in sinking Mrs Clinton. McCain's 'war hero' status may not be the big selling point many suppose it to be.