It's the tax-collecting karate instructor ex-councilman versus the gun-toting former government official turned business developer.
It's the man who did his best to derail Mayor Chris Doherty's political career versus the woman who many suspect the mayor would like to see succeed him.
It's the insider from the city versus the outsider who grew up in Texas and Cleveland.
For the Democratic nomination for Scranton mayor in the May 21 primary election, Bill Courtright and Elizabeth Randol are also up against a truck driver, Lee Morgan, and a former city official, Joe Cardamone, but most city politics observers believe Ms. Randol and Mr. Courtright will finish one-two with only who wins undetermined.
"The matchup is very interesting," said former Mayor David Wenzel, a Republican, who wrote a book on Scranton's mayors.
The Democratic mayoral contest will probably lack the money of past recent mayoral elections. In this economy, no combination of candidates will spend the almost $1.4 million that Mr. Doherty and former Councilman Gary DiBileo did in 2005.
What the race lacks in money, it might make up for in other ways.
For one thing, while Ms. Randol and Mr. Courtright are considered the leading contenders, the presence in the race of Mr. Morgan, long a City Council meeting gadfly, and Mr. Cardamone, a former city community development director, raises questions about whether one or both siphons votes from the leading contenders.
For another, Ms. Randol is the first woman on the ballot for Scranton mayor in more than 30 years, maybe the first Democratic woman to run in the city's history, and almost unquestionably the first with a legitimate shot at winning the nomination.
The last woman who ran for mayor was Barbara Marinucci in 1981. Before her, Sandra C. Raymond ran in 1977.
Both were Republicans, and neither came close to winning even their own party's nomination.
A South Scranton resident who was the Lackawanna County chief of staff and later policy director for state Treasurer Rob McCord and now develops business for the construction firm L.R. Constanzo Inc., Ms. Randol could actually win the nomination and the job.
She had more votes in Scranton than any other Democrat in the May 2011 Democratic primary for Lackawanna County commissioner, including Scranton School Director Brian Jeffers, a proven city votegetter.
Of course, Mr. Courtright is no slouch in votegetting. He won election to the council in 2003, re-election in 2007 and then city tax collector in 2009. He is giving up almost certain re-election to run for mayor. That itself is unusual.
Mr. Morgan ran and lost for council in 2007, 2009 and 2011. Mr. Cardamone has never run before and has announced an unusual way of campaigning: he generally won't, at least not in the standard way of going door to door asking for votes.
Which are major reasons why Mr. Courtright and Ms. Randol are the leading contenders.
The winner will face the winner of the Republican contest between financial consultant Gary Lewis and entrepreneur Marcel Lisi, but the Democrat will become the favorite to be the next mayor. The winner will inherit leadership of a city mired in financial distress for more than two decades and one seemingly destined to raise its real-estate taxes repeatedly the next three or four years.
"I don't envy them the job," Mr. Wenzel said.
As a councilman, Mr. Courtright wanted his friend, Mr. DiBileo, to get the job and was part of a council majority often openly critical of Mr. Doherty.
In one memorable election-eve 2005 council meeting, Mr. Courtright openly railed against Mr. Doherty's re-election by outlining how the mayor's sister, Virginia McGregor, benefited from the construction of the Hilton Scranton & Conference Center, a project the mayor finished after a decade of delays.
The mayor won anyway and if he ran this time, Ms. Randol said she would not have. That adds to the belief that's she's his choice to replace him.
Mr. Doherty says he won't back anyone, Ms. Randol says she's her own woman, but skepticism abounds.
Before nomination petitions were even filed, Ms. Randol, licensed to carry a concealed weapon, had already lost something - her handgun.
Actually, she lent the gun to a friend so he could clean it and he lost it, although it isn't clear how because she says she hasn't figured it out.
Someone found it on Thanksgiving 2011 in front of a commercial laundry in the city's Hill Section and only a block from Prescott Elementary School. Police traced the gun back to Ms. Randol.
Whether that episode influences the outcome remains to be seen, but it certainly shows this race for mayor will likely be different.
Contact the writer: bkrawczeniuk@timesshamrock.com