In business terms, Clinton Inc. is the Microsoft of this contest — a cool and calculating machine that has the experience and ideas, not to mention the money, to crush the competition. It is impressive and frightening. A master of policy details, but is this a soulless company?

Obama LLC is the pesky start-up outfit, taking on the branded behemoth with a combination of charisma and inspiration, with a lot of heart and little experience in the real world of presidential politics. It is impressive and frightening. An endless supply of excitement, but is this company too unsophisticated for this important challenge?

This is the choice for Democratic investors, although John Edwards wants the partisans to believe there is a third way.

So far, and the last week has cemented this point, there only seems to be one way — Hillary Clinton's way. She has racked up more than 100 endorsements, with Clark County Commission Chairman Rory Reid at the top of the campaign. This has served two purposes — one obvious and one subtle. Reid the Younger has immense credibility in Southern Nevada. And it will send a signal to the cynical political world — here and inside the Beltway — that Reid the Elder, the Senate majority leader, has locked up the state for Clinton.

The New York senator also has managed to bring together disparate forces to her burgeoning team. State Senate Minority Leader Dina Titus, who once coveted Rory Reid's commission seat and blamed the father for the son's ambition, is on board. And Clinton has recruited university system Chancellor Jim Rogers and ex-UNLV President Carol Harter, who has that hyphen thanks to the chancellor's campaign to oust her.

Clinton a polarizing figure? She brought together Rogers and Harter!

And there's more: Her campaign is a reporter's in-box nightmare, stuffing it with weekly announcements of new policy positions and endorsements. Some might argue that the policies are thick with rhetoric and light on specifics or that some of the endorsements are meaningless. But the goal of a campaign at this point in the presidential season is to create a sense of motion and worry about the progress later — and that is what Clinton Inc., has done.

Obama LLC, like those kinds of businesses, has few names at the top but there is the perception of many members who have yet to be identified. He doesn't have much in-state help — he has scored an African-American politician or two, and some prominent names (Elaine Wynn, Billy Vassiliadis) recently climbed on board. But there is no sense that Obama has much of a presence here — except when he visits and then he is a real presence.

That was obvious Friday when he came to town, and his dynamic appearances were chronicled in print and broadcast media. But Clinton has become more animated and comfortable in her appearances, as she especially showed in Pahrump this week. She won over a crowd that could have had some hostile elements.

And when I pressed her about the dichotomy of the race, about her carefully scripted campaign versus Obama's more spontaneous effort, she refused to even mention her opponent and simply declared:

"I do think people are ready for change, and they want to be much more thoughtful about who they choose. I feel very comfortable that as people look at the issues, listen to my campaign, more and more will be supporting me."

But her insistence on — with rare exceptions — ignoring Obama reminds me of a Nevada campaign of yore, maybe the most hotly contested in history. I bet Reid the Elder knows how Clinton feels. I'd wager he recalls when an upstart named John Ensign ran against him for the U.S. Senate in 1998 and came out of nowhere to almost defeat him.

It may be hard to believe considering their amicable relationship now but Reid could hardly believe the younger, callow man running against him — he fairly spit out the word "veterinarian" during one debate and wondered what someone who helps animals knows about the Constitution.

You get the same feeling about Clinton as she is asked — and avoids — talking about the younger, more charismatic candidate. She is wary of him — as Microsoft is ever-watchful of the upstarts. But for Clinton, in Nevada and in the country, this race is all about a quick glance in the rear-view mirror and revving up the machine to keep moving forward. Is Obama destined to lag behind because of her greater horsepower, or is he the turtle who will show that the race does not always go to the swift?

In that sense, as Nevada goes, so goes the Democratic nomination fight.