Don’t get your nobodies mixed up.

They are Rep. Mike Johnson and Rep. Dean Phillips.

Johnson, 51, is the right-wing, Christian traditionalist Republican from Louisianna who was just elected Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives.

Phillips, 54, is the liberal Jewish Democrat from Minnesota who just announced that he is running for president against Joe Biden.

Just two weeks ago nobody knew who they were. Maybe people still don’t.

But now both formerly unknowns are in positions to make national news and affect national policy — Johnson by promoting a halt on federal spending and other conservative policies, and Phillips by embarrassing Joe Biden in the New Hampshire presidential primary and perhaps elsewhere.

Johnson, a four-term member of the House, was elected Speaker last week, a job he never sought or hoped to get, after 22 days of wrangling among House Republicans following the ouster of Speaker Kevin McCarthy of California.

Phillips, in his third term in the House, launched his long-shot bid to unseat Biden last week in New Hampshire after failing to get the aging Joe Biden to step aside for a fresher and younger Democrat or face defeat at the hands of Donald Trump or some other Republican.

Biden is blowing off the New Hampshire primary, where he ran poorly four years ago, opting to run in the friendlier South Carolina primary, which the Democrat Party has officially placed before New Hampshire.

Sanctioned by the Democrat Party or not, New Hampshire is going to hold the first primary anyway. Even if Biden will not be the ballot, a good showing by Johnson would be an embarrassment to Biden, especially if Biden supporters conduct a write-in campaign for him,

“This was not about me,” Phillips said in an interview, about his inability to get Biden to see that it was time to pass the torch to a younger Democrat “because it appears that President Joe Biden is going to lose the next election.”

Despite repeated requests, Biden refused to meet with Phillips.

Phillips, a businessman, is one of the wealthiest members of Congress. His father was killed in Vietnam when he was an infant and his mother later married Eddie Phillips, heir to the Phillips Distilling Company. He is the grandson of the late personal advice columnist “Dear Abby.”

Johnson is the son of a Shreveport firefighter who was disabled in the line of duty.  He is a lawyer, a Christian evangelist and a Donald Trump supporter who believes that God plays an active role in a person’s life.

As he said upon his election as Speaker, “I don’t believe there are any consequences in a matter like this. I believe that the Bible makes it very clear that God is the one who raises up those in authority. He raised up each of you. All of us. And I believe that God has allowed and ordained each and every one of us to be here at this specific moment.”

Progressives, particularly in the woke establishment media, could not wait to begin mocking Johnson for his religious beliefs.

What is little known about Johnson is that he and his wife Kelly as newlyweds provided a home for Michael, a 14-year-old black youth who is now in his 30s and has a family of his own. While Johnson maintains a close relationship with Michael, he has asked not to be involved in Johnson’s public life.

Johnson has said Michael “shares his testimony that, were it not for our intervention in his life, that he would certainly have joined a gang, gotten on drugs, wound up in prison, or dead on the street somewhere.”

How many progressive politicians do you know who have done the same?

Johnson is a Republican and Phillips is a Democrat, and they disagree on many things.

U.S. Rep. Dean Phillips, D-Minn. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon, File)

But it should come as a wake-up call to progressive open border Democrats that the two agree on several burning issues, not the least of which is shutting down Joe Biden’s open southern border.

Phillips said immigration will be a key part of his campaign. “Having been to the border twice, it is not secure.”

Johnson, who visited the border with Donald Trump, and filed legislation to secure it, said, “You cannot just open the borders and allow everybody in the world in. It doesn’t work that way.”

These nobodies are becoming somebodies.

Peter Lucas is a veteran Massachusetts political reporter and columnist.