RAPID CITY, S.D. — When Hillary Rodham Clinton dropped by Tally's Restaurant on Monday, it seemed like a routine stop at a Great Plains landmark famous for pigs in a blanket made with buffalo sausage.
She posed for photos and talked to customers about healthcare and student loans, shaking her head at the debt that one young woman said she was wrestling with.
Clinton laughed at the suggestion that her likeness could one day join the dozens of bronze statues of former presidents scattered around downtown Rapid City. (At the front door of Tally's, a life-size Ronald Reagan in cowboy dress stands guard.)
"Get your friends out to vote for me," Clinton told a man wearing a "United We Stand" baseball cap emblazoned with an American flag.
A running theme of Clinton's campaign for president in recent weeks has been her vow to keep fighting for the Democratic nomination even as the odds grew longer. On Monday, that theme dominated her travels once again -- this time on the eve of the South Dakota and Montana primaries that will close a five-month marathon of Democratic contests.
"I want you to think hard," the senator from New York told the crowd at Tally's. "Who would you hire to do this job?"
But the stark reality that Clinton faced was no secret: The hard math of the Democratic delegate count has put her rival Barack Obama within days, if not hours, of declaring himself the party's White House nominee.
And while Clinton struggled to keep her voice on her final journey across South Dakota -- she lost it three times Monday -- and had to scale back her last rally when weather forced it indoors, Obama enjoyed an upbeat daylong visit to Michigan.
Obama campaigned in the Detroit suburbs as if his nomination were inevitable, offering barely a nod to the enduring, if fading, challenge that he faces from Clinton.
The Illinois senator did not bother holding a blast of closing rallies in Montana or South Dakota. Instead, he spent his day making his case against Republican John McCain in a November battleground state, handling South Dakota and Montana radio and TV interviews by phone or satellite.
At a rally in Troy, Mich., Obama mentioned Clinton in passing, offering praise.
"She and I will be working together in November," Obama told a couple thousand supporters packed into a high school gymnasium.
Sally Foley, a lawyer and Obama supporter in the bleachers, said Clinton appeared to be "in denial." "She's having a hard time letting go," Foley said. "It's not happening."
