Jan. 14 (Bloomberg) -- Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, while agreeing on most major issues, still offer Democrats a choice not an echo.

Clinton is more ready and experienced to step into the job. Democrats disillusioned with George W. Bush couldn't ask for a candidate more familiar with the presidency and the levers of power. Nor could any primary voter expect a more reasonable transformational agent of change than Obama.

Clinton's argument that she would be the effective architect of change falls flat just by looking at who surrounds her in this campaign. And no matter how he tries to depict his experience as the ``right'' kind, Obama loses that debate.

``This election simply boils down to the insurgent versus the establishment,'' says Democratic pollster Peter Hart, who's neutral in the race. Drawing on a sports analogy -- the fabled Muhammad Ali-Joe Frazier championship boxing match in the Philippines, he adds: ``This is the `Thrilla in Manila' -- two top heavyweights with very different but great cases to make.''

This contest may be settled quickly. The Clinton camp hopes if she wins the Nevada caucuses next weekend that may provide enough momentum for her the following week in South Carolina, where Obama could be knocked out.

More likely, a crazy-quilt pattern will emerge, presaging a protracted fight, or at least one through Feb. 5, when there are primaries in 22 states electing almost half the delegates to this summer's Democratic convention.

Heavyweights

Both candidates have considerable strengths; they are, as Hart says, heavyweights.

Clinton is thoroughly tested and vetted. Several books critical of her that were published in the last year barely registered. After 16 years, American voters don't need someone to fill in the blanks about Hillary; there aren't many.

Before Obama got in the race, Chicago Mayor Richard Daley, the consummate American political professional, was in the Clinton corner because he was convinced that, unlike other recent Democratic nominees, she was ready for the Republican heat.

Further, as New Hampshire showed, pride in her candidacy is a powerful force among women, both in the primaries and in a general election.

Obama embodies the most effective type of insurgent, cast more in hope than anger. This captures the inherent can-do spirit of American voters, with Franklin Roosevelt and Ronald Reagan two models. Obama, more than any politician since Reagan, is the hope candidate.

`The Toughest'

Also, Bill Clinton's claims to the contrary, most Republican operatives would much prefer to run against Hillary in the fall than against Obama. ``Obama would be the toughest Democratic candidate,'' says Mary Lukens, a longtime Republican polling expert in Michigan. ``His message of hope and changing the way Washington does business has wide appeal to people who are fed up.''

Any post-New Hampshire doubts about Obama's durability were mitigated by a spate of endorsements, from John Kerry to the most important labor union in Nevada. Politicians and unions don't usually embrace candidates who are on the slide. The most impressive was from Arizona's Janet Napolitano, a politically astute governor of a swing state and one of the most important women leaders. The Obama camp says to look for several more important endorsements from prominent women soon.

Recession?

Obama has deficiencies, as his upset loss in New Hampshire revealed. The words are eloquent, the message inspiring; the particulars -- what sort of change would he produce and how? -- are too vague.

His challenge may be most pronounced in the economic sphere. A recession looms, and the primaries are moving to states with a higher proportion of working-class Democrats than Iowa or New Hampshire, where voters making less than $50,000 went for Clinton by a 3-2 margin. Obama proposed a $75 billion economic-stimulus plan that includes tax cuts and government spending, $5 billion more than Clinton suggested last week.

Clinton, who has accumulated strong support as well as sizeable opposition over the years, can ill-afford a nasty primary that elevates her already high negatives.

She says she found her ``voice'' in New Hampshire. What was it? What has she said that is memorable other than tearing up on election eve -- which redounded to her advantage especially when pundits unfairly questioned the authenticity?

Words Matter

She is superb in debates, yet has offered little inspiration outside of those argumentative forums. Words matter. Where's the narrative?

She has another problem: Bill. He is both a great asset, as the most popular figure in the Democratic Party, and a real liability in an election focusing on change.

In spite of his wife's New Hampshire success, Bill Clinton's role was unseemly. Instead of the selective use befitting a former president -- think George H.W. Bush and his son in 2000 -- he was omnipresent on the stump.

``They devalued him,'' says pollster Hart. ``It was like taking your prize possession and trotting him around to every county fair.''

He went beyond the bounds, especially for an ex-president, publicly mischaracterizing Obama's rhetorical record on the Iraq war. In private calls to elicit endorsements, including one to Senator Edward M. Kennedy, he trashed the Illinois senator; it was counterproductive.

Big Dog

This is openly discussed among some Clinton supporters who are delighted that former White House aide Doug Sosnik has joined the campaign. One Sosnik task, they hope, will be to keep the Big Dog -- the name the blogs use for Bill -- on a tighter leash; it won't be easy.

Last week Obama and Clinton got into a tiff over whether he was more like Martin Luther King Jr. or she was more like Lyndon Johnson. Both of their rationales could take a leaf from another great Democrat, Robert F. Kennedy, and the way he closed some speeches during his short 1968 presidential race, quoting George Bernard Shaw.

``Some men see things as they are and say, `Why'?'' is the Hillary Clinton mantra. And Obama: ``I dream things that never were and say, `Why not'?''

(Albert R. Hunt is the executive editor for Washington at Bloomberg News. The opinions expressed are his own.)

To contact the writer of this column: Albert R. Hunt in Washington at ahunt1@bloomberg.net

Last Updated: January 13, 2008 14:15 EST