Perhaps the analogy was inevitable: Hillary Rodham Clinton as Rocky Balboa, the scrappy underdog boxer from Philadelphia memorably depicted in the 1976 Oscar-winning film. Even if Rocky did lose his first big fight.
Addressing a meeting of the Pennsylvania AFL-CIO Tuesday, the former first lady and New York senator said she, like Rocky, wasn't a quitter.
Recalling a famous scene on the steps of the Philadelphia Museum of Art, Clinton said to end her presidential campaign now would be as if "Rocky Balboa had gotten halfway up those art museum steps and said, 'Well, I guess that's about far enough.'"
"Let me tell you something, when it comes to finishing a fight, Rocky and I have a lot in common. I never quit. I never give up. And neither do the American people," Clinton said.
She promised that as president she would create 3 million new jobs through investments in public infrastructure.
Clinton also told the labor audience that as first lady she had forcefully battled NAFTA, the North American Free Trade Agreement, even as her husband was aggressively pushing for its passage through Congress.
The agreement is widely unpopular with organized labor because it helped clear the way for many blue-collar jobs to be moved to Mexico and other countries with cheaper labor costs.
"I did speak out and oppose NAFTA," she said. "I raised a big yellow flag and said 'I don't think this will work.'"
How strongly Clinton worked against NAFTA while in the White House remains a matter of some dispute.
Former aides to Bill Clinton have said she was skeptical of the agreement, but largely because she felt it conflicted with her effort to pass health care reform.
Speaking to reporters later, Clinton insisted she had voiced objections to the substance of the proposal, not just its timing.
"I was in many meetings starting in the '92 campaign — I raised questions," she said.
"I did it in the White House again, in meetings with as many different audiences in the White House in the decision-making process that I could speak to. But the president made a decision. As part of an administration, I believe you support the president, and I did."
Clinton also warned the labor audience that Democrats won't have an easy time against Republican nominee-in-waiting John McCain in the general election, and implied that Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois, her rival for the Democratic nomination, may not be up to the task.
"The Republicans aren't going to give up without a fight," Clinton said. "And no matter how beautiful your rhetoric, the Republicans aren't going to turn off their attack machine — it doesn't have an off-switch."
"But one thing you know about me is that when I say I'll fight for you, I'll fight for you," she said. "I know what it's like to stumble. I know what it means to get knocked down. But I've never stayed down, and I never will."
The fighter theme is a recurrent one for Clinton and is being carried in a new pro-Clinton radio ad by the American Federation of Teachers airing in Pennsylvania. In the 60-second ad, a supporter says: "She stands up for what she believes. When she gets knocked down she get up and keeps on fighting."
The teachers' union has spent about $1.9 million on ads and direct mail supporting Clinton in primary and caucus states since December.
The Pennsylvania ad began airing Monday and will run through April 21 at a cost of $329,000. The Pennsylvania primary is April 22.
In recent days, Clinton has made an issue of calls from some leading Democrats for her to abandon the race. Vermont Sen. Patrick Leahy, a prominent Obama backer, last week called on her to step aside, arguing that she was never going to win enough delegates and suggesting that she should bow out in "the interests of a Democratic victory in November."
"Now, this is one of the most important elections we've ever had," Clinton said Tuesday.
"There is so much at stake. But just as it's getting time to vote here in Pennsylvania, Senator Obama says he's getting tired of it. His supporters say they want it to end."
Clinton's campaign manager, Maggie Williams, on Tuesday compared calls for Clinton to end her campaign to the Florida recount in 2000, a still bitter episode for many Democrats
"The last time that we were told we'd better cut the process short or the sky would fall was when the Supreme Court stopped the Florida recount in 2000," Williams said in a widely distributed campaign memorandum.
"But Chicken Little was wrong. What was true then is true now: There is nothing to fear and everything to gain from hearing from all of the voters."
It's a cold wet night in the countryside outside Philadelphia, rolling hills dotted with pleasant suburbs and occasional blasted small towns, boarded-up buildings and liquor stores where the proprietor stays safe behind bullet-proof glass.
Hillary Clinton is in a vast building big enough to assemble 747s. It's been built on a site long abandoned by US Steel and the growth of a new industrial centre here, it's meant to symbolise regeneration even after the big corporations have abandoned their workers.
The audience is mostly blue-collar-working class in coats and jackets turned up against the cold. By contrast she is in a powder-blue trouser suit, the subject of much mirth to the late-night comics.
It's the kind of garment that makes horrified children say: "Mom, you're not going to the school play dressed like that?"
But she's always attracted that kind of bad-mouthing. "Why does Hillary always look as if she's telling you off for not cleaning round the bath?"
But this audience loves her - or at least the claque who are there to wave banners and cheer, love her very much.
I noticed a steady dribble of people leaving in mid-speech, but in a hall that's almost too vast to see across, it's not easy to see who's leaving and who's heading for the toilets.
The cheers seem to give her a jolt of life - the audacity of hope, as her main opponent puts it - and even across the concrete acres you can see the eyes and teeth gleam with enthusiasm.
She is ahead in Pennsylvania, a state she absolutely must win handsomely if she is to stay in the contest.
Plenty of Democrats think she is behaving selfishly by staying in at all. Obama is now the likely winner and John McCain, the Republican, is happily watching the two Democrats kick lumps out of each other.
As one New York Times commentator put it, some Democrats would love to slip a burlap sack over Hillary's head, and bundle her out of sight before anyone notices.
But even if she is tired, tearful and depressed she can't admit it, even to herself, not for one moment. She walks into the thump of Eye of the Tiger, the Rocky theme, a film about a white boxer who defeats among others a big tough black guy.
Was it subliminal? I doubt it. In modern politics, glaringly obvious is the new subliminal, and today she made the point directly comparing herself improbably to the Sylvester Stallone character.
She said that ending her campaign now would be as if, "Rocky Balboa had gotten halfway up those art museum steps and said 'Well, I guess that's about far enough."'
"Let me tell you something, when it comes to finishing a fight, Rocky and I have a lot in common. I never quit. I never give up. And neither do the American people."
The claque cheers maniacally, and since then I've seen the clip a dozen times on TV. Watching television during an American election is like being trapped on a train by a bore, who insists on making the same point, in your face, over and over again.
She is playing the union card here in Pennsylvania and playing it well. The language is all tied to them. "Who would you hire to do this job?" she asks. She keeps repeating the word hire as if the president was just another working guy with a lunch pail worried about his healthcare.
This morning speaking to a hugely sympathetic crowd she said: "I'll fight for you and I will fight for you as president."
The militant peacenik even spoke lovingly of target-guided missiles because they are made in America. She came close to tears when she talked about a pregnant woman in Ohio who lost her baby and then died because she couldn't afford a hospital's $100 fees.
"A Clinton had to clean up after the last George Bush, and a Clinton's gonna have to do it again," she said.
Which is, after all the whole point of her campaign.
