When asked on Saturday at a rally in Roseburg about party unity, the Illinois senator acknowledged people’s concerns about the length of the nominating process but assured them that Democrats would come out united in the end.

“It was pretty tough and hard fought,” he said about the primary season, describing the former first lady as a “formidable opponent.”

“She was relentless and very effective.”

Was? Note the use of the past tense.

Obama has not wrapped up the nomination and Clinton is still campaigning hard in the remaining primary states.

But the Obama campaign has shifted its focus, at least partly, onto a general election against Republican John McCain. Obama stopped in Michigan and Missouri this week and intends to campaign in Florida and Iowa next week, all of which are states that have already voted and will be crucial to a Democratic win in the fall.

Clinton is seen winning Kentucky on Tuesday while Obama is expected to take Oregon, at which point the campaign predicts he will have more than half of the pledged delegates needed to help secure the nomination. Superdelegates — party leaders and elected officials with the deciding vote in this close race — will follow from there, his camp believes.

Clinton has said she will stay in the race until there is a nominee. The last nominating contest is on June 3. 

Click here for more Reuters 2008 campaign coverage.

Photo credit: Reuters/Richard Clement (Obama waits to speak as he is introduced at a town hall campaign event)

But parsing her recent campaign speeches from West Virginia and South Dakota to Oregon and Kentucky, Clinton does not appear ready to give up the fight just yet.  

At a speech late on Friday here, Clinton appeared initially to aim for a conciliatory tone toward Obama, only mentioning her challenger to draw comparisons between women and blacks — two groups that she said had suffered greatly under the original U.S. Constitution written by America’s founders. 

“Neither Senator Obama nor I nor many of you were fully included in the vision of our founders,” Clinton said.

“We’re here for one reason - to make sure the next president is a Democrat,” Clinton told the dinner held by the Kentucky Democratic Party. “Once we have a nominee I know in my heart we will come together as a party.”

But later in the speech she used very specific pronouns: calling for “a Democratic president who will roll up her sleeves and get to work for all of you.”

A day earlier in Charleston, West Virginia, Clinton had dismissed calls for her to drop out of the race as “déjà vu all over again,”  and recalled similar entreaties before she won the Pennsylvania Democratic primary. 

“There are people who said we need to end this before we get to West Virginia. Well, I don’t think so,” Clinton said. “I was never supposed to win Indiana.” 

Clinton has vowed to continue running until the voting concludes on June 3, but she and campaign aides have hinted she would step aside if it is clear that Obama will be the nominee. 

So which is it? Hillary the Fighter or Hillary the Uniter? Time will tell.

Click here for more Reuters 2008 campaign coverage. 

- Photo credit: Reuters/Chris Baltimore (A Clinton supporter holds up boxing gloves at fundraiser in New York City.)