>

Mark Kelly.
If you took all the qualities of the good guy TV president and distilled them into a person, Kelly is what would come out of the tap.  At a spritely 58, he's (relatively) young.  He's a charismatic vet, carrier pilot, astronaut, and swing-state senator who happens to be married to Gabby Giffords.  Besides all his qualities, he also has very strong name recognition and comes with practically no baggage.
Harris is not well liked.
Stacy Abrams is coming off a loss.
Beto is now sadly a perrenial loser.  Dude's career is effectively over.
Newsom just recently had to hold off a recall.
Mayor Pete, no matter how awesome and well qualified, is gay.
What can people say about Mark Kelly?
Newsome will wait for 2028.
Whitmer and Pritzker are sleepers. 
Pete, Kamala, and Beto won’t last past the first few primaries. They just aren’t that popular. Of those, Pete has the best chance. Ideally, he needs to move to a solid blue state and become a House member, Governor, or Senator to first. His resume still isn’t there, and he will need a massive one to overcome homophobia in America. 
Dark horse - Sherrod Brown. He won’t run, but he’s actually a perfect candidate to beat a DeSantis. I think he’d win the whole thing if he ran, but if he won, OH loses a senate seat to the GOP. I’ve also never gotten the feeling that he wants to be President. 
Mark Kelly is an outside option, but I have yet to feel any vibes coming from DNC circles about him being the guy.
Beshear of Kentucky is probably more of a 2028-2032 option. 
There’s always a good chance that someone comes out of nowhere. No one outside of political circles saw Obama coming, and god knows no one saw Trump coming. 
If Biden sits it out, I’m sure Bernie will toss in his hat to make sure the convo stays on progressive topics. >

I'm curious as to why you think Newsom would wait until '28. He's term limited as governor, so he would leave public office and the public eye in 2026. He could attempt to land a cabinet position in early 2027, but he'd almost immediately abandon it to campaign.
He's currently well versed in the main economic issues that matter to Americans (housing and healthcare especially). The Dem slate is not strong enough to push him out, even if Biden wants to run again, and the GOP is in the middle of a fracture that could make the 2026 election a shoe-in for the Dem nominee.
Now is his time. >

He also has a clear contrast in executive policy from DeSantis and the economic success to tout his as the superior approach. California, despite having some of the most restrictive Covid protocols, has had a stronger economic recovery post-pandemic than anywhere else. He’s also not a far left progressive so he doesn’t alienate the fence-sitters. I’d think he’s the strongest non-Biden option out of the theoretical choices. >


He’s also not a far left progressive so he doesn’t alienate the fence-sitters.

That might be true but a fair amount of people hate California because well.... A lot of batshit crazy ideas have come from California politics, more to the point, I think the California assocation would hurt him as a whole. >

The ones that believe that weren’t going to vote for a Democrat anyway. >

Not necessarily. When you see headlines like 5m in reparations each to everyone who can prove their ancestors were slaves... That doesn't help. >

Again a voter that thinks a recommendation by a task force in a City represents the governor wasn’t gonna vote for the Democrat to begin with. >

Not necessarily. It doesn't take being a Republican to think California is too left.
Left in terms of actual policies vs left in terms of reputation of proposed policies are different answers but for better or worse, California is generally pretty left, especially when compares to other states. >

I think it really depends on what kind of candidate the GOP runs. If they run on culture war and California as a boogie man, then Newsom can cruise through it. California is a massive state, massive population, massive economy. It's a southern border state, the destination state for the broad majority of Chinese trade, a major food producing state, the premiere tech state, the other major media state, a state that has studied housing and homeless, and that is on the forefront of education. 
The GOP can't win by attacking Newsom on policy issues while not bringing any policy solutions of their own to the table. >


a state that has studied housing and homeless,

Have they made any meaningful inroads on either?

The GOP can't win by attacking Newsom on policy issues while not bringing any policy solutions of their own to the table.

The sad thing is it seems they can.  White working class have moved to republicans despite them at best offering nothing or actively harming them.  They offer up the culture wars and say working class a lot.  Democrats do some stuff but it seems like there is a disparity between how much they must do to win their vote. >

For the purposes of speculating, I'd say Gretchen Whitmer or Mark Kelly would be viable choices. Both recently won [re]elections pretty handily in swing state-wide elections. Kelly has more of that quiet appeal, while Whitmer has that 'make-republicans-so-mad-they-tried-to-kidnap-me' gleam. Both theoretically could perform well in a national election.
Newsome is thrown out there, but I think he would fall short for the same reason DeSantis would/will. Sure, he's popular in his state; but it's a state that is on the fringe of the political appetite of the rest of the country. I just don't know that that translates into winning on a national scale. >


while Whitmer has that 'make-republicans-so-mad-they-tried-to-kidnap-me' gleam

Ha. While amusing, I don't think it'd be effective in a wider sense.
I also think Newsome would fail for the same reasons DeSantis will do well. California has a plethora of critical issues that even the liberal wing has to acknowledge are critical issues. Most of Florida's critical issues are considered either cost of doing business or features, not bugs, of the GOP platform. It makes Newsome far, far less likely to win over DNC leaning moderates, but DeSantis far, far more likely to swing GOP leaning moderates. I know several people that voted for Biden that think DeSantis would overall be a fairly good economic leader. There's been enough distance from Covid, and for many unfortunately Roe isn't critical from their own selfish views, so their primary concern is pulling out of the economic nosedive. Do I believe DeSantis can pull us out? Fuck no. Do I think he can convince people that he can better than Newsome? Honestly yeah I do. >

DeSantis’s strength is much more cultural and social issues than economic ones. That’s why you see him talking about LGBTQIA issues, race issues, vaccines, masks, wokeness, abortion, etc. that’s where he’s earning his votes. He doesn’t want to talk about how inflation in Florida is the highest in the country or the cost of homeowners insurance. >

My mother in law despises DeSantis and homeowner’s insurance pricing was a big part of what made her leave Florida for the Midwest. Shes always been relatively quiet politically but she will go off about DeSantis, it’s awesome >

Andy Beshear is overwhelmingly popular as far as Democratic governors go and he hails from Kentucky. >

Beshear is in the same boat as Phil Scott, Larry Hogan, and Charlie Baker. The four of them were consistently ranked as the top five most popular governors in the country. Hogan, Baker, and Scott all won reelection in landslides despite running in deep-blue states, and come November, Beshear is more likely than not to win a second term, too.
But all of them are so out of touch with the party base that there's no way in hell they'd even come close to winning a primary. The general election? Maybe. Hell, any of them might even remake the modern battleground map as we know it. But even if they were to run against the worst Dems/GOPers imaginable, they still wouldn't win the nomination. >

Beshear is not the Democratic equivalent to Scott, Hogan, or Baker on the Republican side. First off all those republican governors vocally opposed Trump while Beshear embraces Biden.
On the issues, Beshear is a mainline almost progressive Democrat on abortion, health care, climate change, unions, LGBTQIA rights, racial issues, drug legalization, immigration, criminal Justice reform, and education. He’s a slight moderate on gun control compared to progressives though.
With those deep blue state GOP governors they’d have so many non-starters in the primaries. They support trans rights, they believe in climate change, they support BLM, they’ve enacted “sanctuary” laws on immigration, they support forms of gun control. They’d be DOA. >

John Bel Edwards is arguably a way better comparison, yes. But yet, I still doubt that Andy Beshear would gain any traction outside of Kentucky. Ideology aside, Beshear is bland as white bread, has zero personality whatsoever, and I'm unsure that there's a natural constituency for him as a Democratic presidential primary candidate. >

NC Governor Roy Cooper should run. He won NC twice in the same two elections that NC voted for Trump - that's indicative of strong centrist appeal, and that's what the Dems need to win. >

Presidential elections are a whole different beast.  He'd not get far in a presidential primary.  Whoever runs against DeSantis will need energy, charisma, good debate skills to shut him down and be nimble in their campaign.  
Ideally they'd already have started the precursor to their campaigns to get their name out there.  DeSantis has been doing this for some time now.  So has Newsom. >

DeSantis is low energy and has the charisma of a wilted cactus. There's no real need to worry about DeSantis now that Trump is in. If I were Ron I'd hide until Trump is gone because he is going to get fucking murdered.  Have you ever seen Ron speak or answer even a basic question? He's awful on camera. 
We need someone who can hang with Trump's one-liners. So in essence I do agree with you there that we need another orator like Obama to motivate people.