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We saw two likely presidential candidates on TV after Barack Obama was done stealing ideas about education reform from Aaron Sorkin and the fictional presidency of Josiah Bartlet.

First, Paul Ryan of Wisconsin, the attractive congressman from Janesville who will look you in the eye and tell you that everything will be all right if we stop spending.

Second, Michele Bachmann of Minnesota, a Tea Party favorite and third term congresswoman whose infantile ramblings about deficit spending and unemployment were almost as pathetic as her inability to look at the right camera.

Bachmann recently made a highly publicized trip to the early battleground state of Iowa, and Ryan, who will be 41 on Saturday, is seen by many to be the future of the party, serving as chairman of the powerful House Budget Committee in the new Congress.

But Bachmann doesn’t have much name recognition – along with many other potential candidates, including Sen. John Thune of North Dakota, Rep. Mike Pence of Indiana, Chinese Ambassador Jon Huntsman and Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour. And Paul, while a likely option in 2016 or 2020, is still very young and has openly admitted he wants to focus on raising his family before thinking about Pennsylvania Avenue.

So that leaves the names most of us recognize – not to say that a dark horse is impossible, after all, few people knew anything about John Kerry in Jan. 2003. But the most likely names voters may recognize are Sarah Palin, Mike Huckabee, Newt Gingrich, Tim Pawlenty and Mitt Romney.

Let’s start with Palin. She definitely has some fans and will get some early votes if she runs. But she can’t beat Barack Obama – a Jan. 10 poll from McClatchy shows Obama leads her 56-30, or 26 points. Those numbers, if nothing else, will keep superdelegates from supporting her.

Then there is Huckabee. He’s an interesting choice: a dynamic speaker who wants to abolish the IRS and create a national sales tax. And a second president from Hope, Arkansas, sounds pretty good. But his social conservatism will be an issue for many Republican voters in the primary, and superdelegates know that he will turn off independents, so it probably won’t be him.

Ah, Newt. He may be a logical choice, but I would guess he won’t run. Gingrich is more than a decade out of politics, and as elections in 1996 and 2008 have shown us, running an old timey Republican against a young, new face doesn’t work too well. Don’t count him out, but don’t bet on him.

How about Pawlenty? He lacks name recognition of others examined here, but he seems likely to run – just this month Politico reported him as saying “If I decide to run it would be for president, not vice president,” showing he’d like to be more of a household name. He’ll face harsh criticism from independents for being vehemently opposed to Roe v. Wade and for wanting to reinstate “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.”

That leaves the runner-up in 2008, and the man you’d want to bet on in Vegas: Mitt Romney, the former governor of Massachusetts. He has a presidential look, a well-known name, has led a liberal state through controversial health care reforms, and he’s willing to say whatever needs to be said in order to win.

He raised millions for GOP candidates in the 2010 midterms; some polls show him within the margin of error or even leading Obama, and his social conservatism isn’t too strong to turn off independents. The only downside would be the fact that he’s a Mormon, a subject he doesn’t openly discuss. But if one-fourth of the nation believes a man is a Muslim and he still finds a way to get elected, a majority of the country can ignore 30 months as a Mormon missionary in France and get behind Romney.

Can he really beat Obama? Maybe. But pending a surprise, he may be the only one with a shot of getting through the crowded field and taking him down.

Kevin Bargnes ([email protected]) is a senior majoring in journalism.