Surrounded by boarded-up housing and factories, the Red Chimney diner in eastern Cleveland is at the heart of the US home foreclosure crisis. Known as Slavic Village because it used to be home to so many Polish immigrants, the area’s 44105 zip code has attained notoriety for having the highest concentration of failing sub-prime mortgages in the US.

“Twenty years ago this was a close-knit Polish community,” says Marge Kowalski, who is serving outsized cherry pies and banana cakes to the diner’s blue- collar clientele. “Now I wouldn’t let a dog out in this neighbourhood.”

Crucial primariy

One of the three big states left to vote – with Texas and Pennsylvania – Ohio sends 161 delegates to the Democratic convention. The latest Rasmussen poll gives Hillary Clinton an eight-point lead over her rival, Barack Obama, down from 14 points last week. Ohio is a swing state: it supported Bill Clinton in 1992 and 1996 but switched to George W. Bush in 2000 and 2004.

Slavic Village is home to the kind of working-class voters who until recently were expected to deliver an overwhelming victory to Hillary Clinton in Ohio’s Democratic primary in 10 days’ time. But Mrs Clinton’s detailed plans to stem home foreclosures, which include a 90-day stay on bank repossessions and a five-year freeze on subprime mortgage rates, are not at the forefront of people’s minds.

“We have been in decline for years and years – this isn’t a new problem,” says Tim Lee, a local cab driver and a patron of Red Chimney. “I don’t think there is anything a president can do about it.” Ms Kowalski, who ought to be a natural Clinton supporter, is more engaged in the race. “There are strong merits to both candidates,” she said. “But I couldn’t tell you which I’d vote for.”

In the latest in a growing list of unscripted moments, Bill Clinton this week admitted that his wife’s candidacy would be finished if she failed to win both Texas and Ohio. Opinion polls in Texas show the two candidates are now neck and neck.

In Ohio, Mrs Clinton’s lead over Barack Obama has been cut from almost 20 to just 7 points in the space of a month, with one in three voters still undecided – an ominously high number for the former first lady since “late deciders” have tended to go for Mr Obama.

Worse, in the city of Cleveland, which Mrs Clinton must win by a large margin if she is to prevail in Ohio, both the city’s mayor, Frank Jackson, and its main daily paper, The Plain Dealer, have endorsed Mr Obama. Union members, who last Tuesday in Wisconsin broke clearly in Mr Obama’s favour, appear to be split both ways or undecided.

Their hesitancy may have been reinforced in the past 10 days by the endorsement of Mr Obama by many of the country’s leading unions, including the Teamsters, the Boilermakers and the Service Employees International Union.

They may also have picked up on Mr Obama’s detailed economic policy roll-outs over the past week, which included a “Patriot Employers” proposal that would levy lower corporate taxes on companies that maintained their headquarters in the US and improved their ratio of onshore to offshore employees.

In a clear bid for the endorsement of John Edwards, who set the campaign’s populist economic tone before dropping out of the race last month, both candidates have attacked trade liberalisation deals and promised to revise the North American Free Trade Agreement, which was passed by the Clinton administration. Issues such as Iraq, which is rated as the top priority by only 9 per cent of Ohio’s voters, have barely featured.

“Whoever says they are going to eliminate Nafta will get my vote,” says Rick Subby, a master carpenter who works for the local council and whose unionised workplace is festooned with Irish and Italian tricolours. “I’m not sure who that is yet.” One of Mr Subby’s workmates reminds him of an unwritten rule that it is forbidden to talk about religion, politics or women in the workplace. “That’s bad news for Hillary,” he jokes.

It is China, rather than Nafta, which exercises George Exergian, a cleaning supervisor in a municipal building who earns $14.50 an hour. Pointing to the clock on the wall, the stapler on his desk, the watch on his wrist and the cleaning liquids on his trolley, Mr Exergian repeats “Made in China” over and over.

“I don’t want to be doing $10-an-hour jobs at the local K-Mart or Wal-Mart, both of which should be called China-Mart,” he says. “Both Mr Obama and Mrs Clinton are very talented candidates but neither of them has persuaded me they can do anything about China taking our jobs away.”

Instead, the two candidates are bombarding Ohio with television advertisements that show their affinity with working people. Mr Obama reminds Ohio’s rusting manufacturing workforce that he once worked as community organiser among unemployed steel workers in Chicago’s south side.

And Mrs Clinton tells viewers that she also knows what its like. “You pour the coffee, fix your hair, you work the night shift at the local hospital,” says the ad. “She understands. She has worked the night shift too.”