One candidate is 73, with a shock of wispy white hair and a famously rumpled demeanor that makes him look more like a mad scientist than a politician.

The other is central casting’s image of a presidential candidate: square-jawed, athletic-looking and 52 years old — the ideal age that Fortune 500 companies look for in a CEO and that voters find appealing in a president.


Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders and former Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley are both expected to challenge Hillary Clinton for the Democratic nomination for president. Sanders entered the race last month, and O’Malley is expected to make a formal announcement Saturday in Baltimore.

But, perhaps counterintuitively, it’s Sanders — six years older than Clinton, a self-defined socialist with no big money apparatus and positions that appeal to the far left of the party — that Democratic strategists and Clinton insiders expect to pose a bigger threat to the former secretary of state than the mainstream O’Malley, who has been trying to build a national constituency by positioning himself slightly to her left.

“Sanders could be 2016’s Eugene McCarthy,” said Democratic strategist Hank Sheinkopf, who in the past has advised Bill Clinton. “He is the populist symbol well-known to his supporters. Clinton is the establishment candidate. Sanders is the insurgent. And O’Malley needs money and has to run a traditional campaign and create a constituency. Sanders’ constituency is just waiting to be told the game is on.”

Sanders’ liberal stances make him well-positioned to inherit the Ready for Warren constituency that O’Malley has also tried to court, through off-the-record meetings with enthusiasts of Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren. Sanders this week hired Kurt Ehrenberg, who ran the New Hampshire effort to draft Warren into the race, to be his top operative in the Granite State.

Both of Clinton’s challengers are considered bit players, so far, in the drama of the 2016 election. In a recent Iowa poll, Sanders got 15 percent, O’Malley got 3 percent and each trailed Clinton by close to 50 points.

But the moments of contrast and friction between Clinton and her Democratic opponents will be what help to define her as a candidate. Sanders — a clearly defined politician who can tap into a vein of anger in the Democratic Party over hedge funds and big banks in the wake of the financial crisis — is more likely to push her on policy than O’Malley, who so far has played it safe, strategists said.

Insiders familiar with the thinking of the Clinton campaign described it as “frightened” of Sanders — not that he would win the nomination, but that he could damage her with the activist base by challenging her on core progressive positions in debates and make her look like a centrist or corporatist. One source described the campaign as “pleased,” at least, that O’Malley and Sanders will split the anti-Clinton vote. A Clinton spokesman declined to comment.

At his kickoff rally in Burlington, Vermont, on Tuesday, where thousands turned out to support him, Sanders vowed to “break up the largest financial institutions in the country” and provided the kinds of specifics Clinton has yet to color in. Sanders called for raising the minimum wage to $15 an hour. (Clinton has said she supports raising the minimum wage but has yet to say by how much.) Sanders also supports a single-payer health insurance system, expanding Social Security benefits, free tuition at public universities and universal prekindergarten.

Sanders this week said Clinton’s money “hustle” makes her out of touch with the everyday Americans whom she seeks to represent, and he criticized her for failing to take a position on President Barack Obama’s controversial trade deal. O’Malley so far has appeared reluctant to take on Clinton directly. He has refused to weigh in on the email scandal trailing Clinton, and his pulled punches have many speculating about whether he is running for vice president or simply to raise his profile for a second candidacy down the line.

“Running for president is rough and tumble,” said one longtime Clinton confidant. “Maybe one of the reasons O’Malley’s not getting much traction is that nobody knows him, but nobody’s going to know him if he soft-pedals.”

It remains to be seen whether O’Malley will come out of the gate punching when he formally announces his bid Saturday.

But it’s Sanders, top strategists said, who could more likely disrupt the primary. Unless Clinton plays nice with them, Sanders’ supporters could refuse to enthusiastically support her campaign down the line.

“Iowa and New Hampshire are places where citizen politics still matters, and getting enthusiastic, energetic volunteers and campaign workers makes a huge difference,” said Kenneth Sherrill, professor emeritus of political science at Hunter College in New York. “I look at my Facebook feed, my Twitter feed, no one mentions Martin O’Malley. But Bernie Sanders enjoys a lot of affectionate enthusiasm. I see his supporters as people who will keep going in the face of adversity. Presidential primary activists are a strange breed, and primary candidates get a devoted following, one that’s sometimes even hard for the candidate to turn off when it’s all over.”

Clinton’s camp, so far, seems attuned to the need to avoid alienating Sanders’ constituency. After Sanders announced his presidential campaign last month, Clinton tweeted: “I agree with Bernie. Focus must be on helping America’s middle class. GOP would hold them back. I welcome him to the race.”

Whether they are merely seeking to lower expectations, or they feel threatened by the challengers in the race, Clinton campaign officials have said from Day One that they expect the primary to be more competitive than people assume and that they are taking nothing for granted.

In Iowa, activists have a natural affinity for Sanders, who will be campaigning in Kensett, a small town of 250 people, on Saturday.

“Bernie Sanders has something that politicians, especially the new breed, sometimes find wanting, and that is authenticity,” said Kurt Meyer, chairman of the northern Iowa tri-county Democratic Party. “There’s very little varnish there. That’s something that certainly appeals to rural Iowans.” In contrast, Meyer described O’Malley as “an effective administrator who says and does the right things and is a little more new school.”

Some in Clinton’s orbit, however, said Clinton’s biggest vulnerability is appearing as if her time to win was eight years ago — and that moment came and went. These people are inclined to believe that O’Malley, who is still unknown to most voters, could prove to be an appealing new face and present an unflattering contrast to Clinton, who has occupied the public stage for decades.

“Her biggest potential opponent is someone who makes her look like yesterday’s news,” said one Democratic strategist with ties to Clinton world. “Bernie Sanders will be entertaining and interesting to watch and will probably give her fits and starts, but a really good performance by O’Malley could make people wonder if she’s the one.”