What is America? It is the place where the former Navy lieutenant and SEAL advisor in Florida faces off with the former wine retailer and parking commissioner in California. If you know how to unpack that sentence, you probably don’t need anything else to place both men in their respective positions in the American psyche.

DeSantis embodies that combination of steely self-discipline and cunning appraisal of his foes that makes him the embodiment of unstoppable resolve. If he were a businessman, he’d be a Vanderbilt, Gould, Carnegie or J.P. Morgan. If he were a movie heavy, he would be Charles Bronson, to whom he bears a certain resemblance: perhaps the deadly figure known only as Harmonica in Sergio Leone’s 1968 shoot-’em-up, Once Upon a Time in the West. DeSantis definitely has his softer side, but that’s not what defines his character on the national stage.

Newsom embodies the glamour of coastal California. Handsome, relaxed, poised and in control of the situation. He has always been a hard worker, driven to succeed, but somehow capable of seeming unstressed. A fourth generation native of San Francisco, he floats in the breeze like a spinnaker — a sail especially designed for going in the direction of the prevailing wind. As a politician, he is unexcelled at adopting such positions, decriminalizing pot, putting transgender inmates in the prisons of their choice and authorizing same-sex marriages in San Francisco years before they were legal. If he were a military man, he might be the Union general George B. McClellan, who was good at logistics but not much of a fighter. Like McClellan, Newsom shows well. If Newsom were a movie star, he might be Kevin Costner, perhaps playing countercultural Lieutenant John Dunbar in the 1990 movie Dances with Wolves. Tagline: “In 1864 a man went looking for America — and found himself.”