As his wife Hillary's hopes of winning the Democratic presidential nomination were going the way of the Titanic, Bill Clinton was on his mobile phone.
He was not discussing how Mrs Clinton could leave the race with dignity and congratulate Barack Obama on his historic victory — the former president was shouting at his wife's aides, urging them to pressure superdelegates to stand by her and cajole others to defect from Obama.
Hillary Clinton's attention was on finalising a concession speech in which she conceded nothing, save her belief that she is still a stronger candidate than Obama.
Many close to the Clintons believe her elimination was the inevitable culmination of both Clinton's dysfunctional campaign and her personality, that the manner of her exit explains all you need to know about the reasons for her demise.
It was all on display: the seemingly boundless quest for power, a self-belief that one pundit dismissed as “deranged narcissism'', the disorganised campaign staff and the husband rampaging around like a rogue elephant.
A Democrat strategist, explained: “Hillary wasn't interested in Obama. She was only interested in her voters. She thought that they were hers to trade for the vice-presidency. There was never any discussion of her conceding.''
The reasons why her historic bid for power failed are still being argued over. She allowed her aides to paint her as an establishment candidate in a change election.
She spent too much money early and unwisely, failed to compete properly in the Iowa caucuses, the first electoral test in January, and then ignored the states where Obama ran up the vote.
By the time she found her voice, as a defender of the rights of the working class, it was too late.
When you're looking for the moment it went wrong, aides point to the moment in October when Clinton's chief strategist Mark Penn betrayed a total misunderstanding of the rules that would apportion delegates on a proportional basis in each state.
On January 3, Clinton came third in Iowa. Mark Mellman, a Democratic pollster, said: “They had the money to compete and they allowed themselves to be outspent there by Obama.
If Hillary Clinton had won in Iowa the election would have been over the next day.''
Clinton's comeback, begun in New Hampshire, stopped dead in the South Carolina primary, where the former president's clumsy interventions sparked claims of race baiting and drove African-American voters into Obama's arms for good.
Neither Clinton appeared able to grasp the appeal of Obama, stuffily dismissing the hordes of young people who were drawn to the polls as naive kids.
But it was not just Clinton's personality that rang false. Before the crucial North Carolina primary, which she had billed as a “game changer'' she got caught falsely claiming that she had braved sniper fire on a trip to Bosnia.
The result was indeed a game changer, but not of the kind she had wished for.
She lost by more than 20 points and commentators proclaimed her campaign dead. That was on May 6.
But still she did not quit. The final throw of the dice saw Clinton overplay her hand again, wielding her votes like weapons, while sanctioning her supporters to press for her to be vice-president. Even her backers were incredulous.
Ed Rendell, the governor of Pennsylvania, went public with his dismay. “You don't bargain with the Presidential nominee,'' he said. “Even if you're Hillary Clinton and you have 18 million votes.''
Daniel Koffler, of the Huffington Post blog, said: “The Clintons' power play failed because, like Gorbachev, Honecker, and Ceausescu before them, they grossly miscalculated both the breadth and depth of their power.''
