Determined Steps in a Tough Slog

For a month, Monte has been driving her beat-up Saturn back and forth across town, sleeping in the guest room of her best friend's mom's house, determined to give her candidate every chance to shock the pundits in Philadelphia. "We're trying," Monte said, "to fight for every vote."

But fighting ain't always easy.

To get a whiff of Clinton's climb in Philadelphia, just stroll down, well, Clinton Street. It is just two blocks long, near the geographic heart of Center City. On Clinton Street, you will find Kathy Cushing, 61, owner of a four-story, nine-room bed-and-breakfast and the informal mayor of the street. She also happens to be an expert on all things Hillary, citing as evidence the 10 books she's read about the former first lady. Expert or not, she had been planning to vote for Obama until last Thursday's debate in which Clinton's performance gave her second thoughts. Not that it will make any difference, she believes. Obama is simply too strong here, Cushing said.

Sitting on her stoop, pointing to newly planted orange and yellow marigolds, Cushing marveled at an Obama mailer that just hit her doorstep Friday afternoon. "It came with an eight-minute DVD! A DVD! I mean, this guy's pulling out all the stops!"

Clinton has countered by spending more time campaigning in Philadelphia than Obama, including announcing her $4 billion anti-crime plan in West Philly. She has also rolled out celebs such as Puerto Rican salsa star Willie Colon, and as usual, her all-star family -- former president Bill Clinton and daughter Chelsea, who was mobbed when she dropped by some of the city's popular gay clubs.

But as some Clinton staffers readily conceded, their events drew only a fraction of the crowds that Obama's seemed to draw effortlessly. And there seemed to be nowhere to escape his face -- on television all the time, on the cover of Philadelphia Weekly. "How do you run against that kind of press?" asked a frustrated Mark Nevins, the Clinton campaign's state spokesman.

Monte, who started with the campaign in New Hampshire and went on to Missouri and Ohio, assures that she will hustle until the last Clinton vote is found tomorrow. But some wonder if the Clinton team did enough. Brittany Mason, a senior at Temple University, said it seems as if the Clinton campaign all but decided not to challenge Obama's strength on college campuses. A mistake, she said.

"There are many young Clinton supporters like me," said Mason. "They could have done much better reaching out to us."

Jose Antonio Vargas reported from Philadelphia.