gone unsold for the past year. She spoke movingly of the pain being experienced by the developer. A few miles north, homeless Oregonians were besieging the offices of Portland's mayor, Tom Potter.

Almost exactly 40 years ago John F Kennedy's younger brother Bobby was making a similar last-throw bid in California to win the state and seize the Democratic nomination by a populist campaign. Bobby reached out to California's poor. There's no way Bobby would have hunkered down with a property developer. He'd have been heading the homeless to the mayor's office to demand they be given rent-free accommodation in the unsold mansions.

Bobby Kennedy's younger brother Ted, diagnosed this week with a malignant brain tumor, tried to sell the same populism as Bobby in his run for the nomination against Carter in 1980. Eight years later Jesse Jackson, the first black American to take a serious tilt at the Democratic nomination, led many a poor people's march to City Halls across America.

Not any more. Hillary's populism has been skin-deep in the literal sense of the term. It's not been about rich developers, or predatory sub-prime loans. It's only about the colour of Obama's skin.

The old truism about primary season used to be that Democratic candidates had to run left to capture crucial support from the sort of politically active progressives who vote in Democratic primaries and caucuses. Then, with the nomination secured, the nominee would spend the rest of the year running right, to win over middle America

But Obama has achieved the amazing feat of being the almost surefire nominee without barely a phrase on the record with which John McCain can belabour him for 'loony-leftism' or even 'outdated liberalism' in the months to come.

Bloated Pentagon budgets? This favoured target in past primary seasons has flourished unscathed this year, even though the arms spending to which Bush's former defence secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, committed the US government promises certain budgetary