The two mega-state governors, brawling for days, are on oddly parallel missions: Both want to run for president in 2024 and wrest control of their parties from an old guard along the way. DeSantis, 43, and Newsom, 54, have found excellent foils in one another as they work to nudge Donald Trump and Joe Biden, both septuagenarians, to the sidelines. While Trump and Biden decide whether to run again, DeSantis and Newsom are seizing their opportunities…

The buddy movie is chiefly important for raising the profiles of both men at a time when the two parties are having some second thoughts about their most likely nominees. But the Newsom and DeSantis back-and-forth has the potential to become a real debate about ideology as the two parties search for direction in the post-Trump era…

Both men are clearly risk takers who sense an opportunity to turn the page on Trump and Biden and still run as Washington outsiders in an era of deep frustration with the status quo.

Of course, it’s far from clear that either Biden or Trump will stand aside. And even if they do, there is no guarantee that DeSantis or Newsom will emerge as a nominee in 2024. But the two governors are already altering the landscape on which those questions will be answered. And their interests are, for the moment, in a strange alignment of convenience.