The 2010 race for Michigan governor is a toss-up, according to a new MRG/Inside Michigan Politics poll (March 4-10, 600 RV, MoE +/- 4.1%), with incumbent Jennifer Granholm (D) term-limited.

Granholm enjoyed a 14-point re-election victory in 2006, and Obama defeated McCain in the state by 16 points in 2008. However, the leading Democratic candidate trailed all three GOP candidates tested in hypothetical general election matchups.

Dem Primary
Lt. Governor John Cherry (26%) leads, followed by Michigan First Gentleman Daniel Granholm-Mulhern (10%), Michigan State University Trustee George Perles (4%) and House Speaker Andy Dillon (3%). Undecided voters account for 57%.

GOP Primary
Oakland County Executive Brooks Patterson (22%) leads, followed by Rep. Pete Hoekstra (17%), Attorney General Mike Cox (15%), Secretary of State Terri Lynn Land (12%), and State Senator Tom George (2%). Undecided voters accounted for 32%.

General Election
Cox (R) 41 - Cherry (D) 34
Patterson (R) 38 - Cherry (D) 34
Land (R) 39 - Cherry (D) 34

Ohio Gov. Ted Strickland's (D) "solid" 56%/30% approval-disapproval rating is down from last month (63%/25%), as is support for his budget proposals, a new Quinnipiac survey finds (March 10-15, 1299 RV, MoE +/- 2.7%).

Strickland still holds double-digit leads over two potential GOP challengers, former congressman and FOX News host John Kasich and former Sen. Mike DeWine, though his lead over both slipped from last month. In a GOP primary, DeWine leads Kasich 32%-27%, with 37% undecided.

Strickland 51 (-5 vs. last poll, Feb. 5)
Kasich 31 (+5)
Und 12

Strickland 50 (-4 vs. last poll, Feb. 5)
DeWine 34 (+2)
Und 15

Strickland's net 38% positive approval rating dropped to a net 26% in about six weeks, and he now has a negative net rating for handling the economy, by a 45%-39% margin. He had a positive rating on the economy last month, with 44% approving to 37% disapproving.

"The numbers themselves are not something that the Governor needs to worry about, but the trend, if it were to continue, could create a political problem for him," said Peter A. Brown, assistant polling director at Quinnipiac. "These numbers are the first indication that Ohio voters are beginning to blame Gov. Strickland for the bad economy."

Anyone seen Michael Steele on television lately? He seems to have gotten the message from the rank and file, which is that his first priority is raising money, recruiting candidates and building the party, not being a talking head. And, as if in response to those who criticized Steele for a lack of message discipline, today he announced the hiring of the new communications director for the RNC. Full release below the jump.

(more...)

President Obama said that his administration is exploring "every legal avenue" to try and block bonuses to be paid to executives from AIG, asking how they could justify the "outrage" to taxpayers who now own most of the company.

"This is a corporation that finds itself in financial distress due to recklessness and greed.
Under these circumstances, it's hard to understand how derivative traders at AIG warranted any bonuses, much less $165 million in extra pay," Obama said to a crowd of small business owners this morning.

Obama said that Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner hopes to use the leverage that the Treasury has because of its ownership stake in AIG to resolve the controversy. Geithner is working with AIG CEO Edward Liddy, who Obama made sure to mention took the job "after the contracts that led to these bonuses were agreed to."

Obama interrupted his remarks at one point to cough, then joked that he was "choked up with anger" over the bonuses.

"I think Mr. Liddy and certainly everybody involved need to understand, this isn't just a matter of dollars and cents. It's about our fundamental values," he said. "All across the country, there are people who work hard and meet their responsibilities every day, without the benefit of government bailouts or multi-million dollar bonuses. ... All they ask is that everyone, from Main Street to Wall Street to Washington, play by the same rules."

Geithner, who joined Obama for the announcement in the East Room, had a stern message of his own, but for U.S. banks, as he urged them to loosen up credit to help small businesses.

"Many banks in this country took too much risk, but the risk now to the economy is that you will take too little risk," he said. "You need - you banks - need to make the extra effort to make sure that good loans are getting to credit-worthy small businesses in order to serve the larger public good of moving this nation to recovery. And given the role that many banks played in causing this crisis, you bear a special responsibility for helping America get out of it."

Pew Research finds that 59% of Americans approve of President Obama's handling of the job as president (March 9-12, 1308 A), down 5 points from last month. His disapproval rating has increased 9 points to 26%.

In Congress, the approval rating for Republican leaders has dropped 6 points from last month to 28%, the lowest rating in at least 15 years of Pew surveys. The approval rating for Democratic leaders remained steady from last month, dropping 1 point to 47%. Democrats' ratings the last two months have been their highest since mid-2002.

Asked who the leader of the Republican Party is, 15% said nobody, 11% said John McCain and 5% said Rush Limbaugh. On Limbaugh, 39% said he has too much influence over the GOP, 23% said he has the right amount, and 13% said he has too little.

Despite the economy's ups and downs, 70% still say people are better off in a free market economy.

A new CNN/Opinion Research poll finds President Obama with a 64% approval rating (March 12-15, 1019 A), down 3 points from mid-February. His 34% disapproval has increased 5 points to 34%.

On the economy, Obama's approval rating dips to 59%, with 40% disapproving. Asked whose policies they would blame if the economy doesn't improve over the next year, 54% said Bush 43 and the Republicans, and 32% said Obama and the Democrats.

The same question was asked in May 1993, and an equal number (39%) said Bush 41 and the Republicans and Clinton and the Democrats.

Pew Project for Excellence in Journalism released its annual "State of the Media" report for 2009 today. In it, of course there's much gloom and doom for an industry that's had a difficult year, particularly newspapers and magazines, which were the hardest hit by the recession.

One sector that's not only escaped the financial downturn unscathed but also managed some growth is cable television. Audience for cable was up 38% in 2008 than from the previous year and the industry, with a model based on both subscriber fee and advertising, is proving to be highly profitable.

On the other hand, local television news is getting hammered as much as newspapers and magazines are. In an election and Olympic year, when advertising revenues and audience typically spike, there was actually a 7% and 4.5% decline, respectively.

And everywhere else, it's bad news, including for online media, where advertising growth has come to a screeching halt. Advertising revenue is down for every part of the media industry, except cable TV. The worst hit is the newspaper business, where ad revenue declined by over 10% in 2008.

The gloom-and-doom report summed everything up with the pronouncement that there is no magic bullet to cure all that's ailing the media. Time magazine's M.J. Stephey summarizes it as such: "(I)f the solutions aren't obvious, the report's overall message is: Will the future leaders of journalism please, please stand up?"

Click here if you want to print out the entire report.

In the current issue of Democracy, Charles Kupchan and Adam Mount, say we should abandon the quasi-utopian dreams on both the right and left for a Western dominated world order and instead begin accommodating ourselves to a world of greater political diversity.

Instead, the United States should take the lead in constructing a more pluralist international order. Were Washington to orchestrate the arrival of this next order, it would not denigrate the accomplishments of democracy, but rather demonstrate an abiding confidence in the values the West holds dear and in the ability of liberal forms of government to outperform and ultimately prevail against authoritarian alternatives. Cultivating new stakeholders, carefully devolving international responsibility to regional actors, and placing the international economy on a more stable footing will also allow the United States the respite needed to focus on rebuilding the foundations of its own prosperity.The United States will be better off if it gets ahead of the curve and helps craft a new order that is sustainable than if it fights a losing battle against tectonic shifts in global politics. As Kissinger observes, "America needs to learn to discipline itself into a strategy of gradualism that seeks greatness in the accumulation of the attainable."

I suspect Kupchan and Mount are correct about the overall contours of the international system in 20-30 years, but I don't think we're going to arrive there by dint of any coherent strategy on behalf of the U.S. Just as containment was cobbled together across a diverse array of bureaucrats and politicians with conflicting visions, America's "post hegemony" phase will mostly consist of ad-hoc adjustments to new realities.

George Stephanopoulos generally does a good job conducting interviews on his Sunday program, but this strikes me as a truly terrible idea:

Next Tuesday, I'm trying something new.

Catch my "twitterview" with Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., on Tuesday, March 17 at 12 noon on Twitter.

We're going to attempt to conduct a full interview exclusively on Twitter -- complete with the 140-character limit!

It's bad enough that we boil down every issue - even the most nuanced and complex ones - into 15 second sound bytes so they can pass for news.  But why on earth would we want to take that process even further by trying to boil down an interview into 140 character questions and answers? Because we can? Because this is the way ABC News thinks it can "connect" with the Holy Grail of media executives everywhere, otherwise known as a younger audience?

Twitter is an interesting new form of communication and, as we've seen demonstrated recently by members of Congress and others, it certainly has its uses. But conducting serious interviews in 140 character increments is almost certainly not one of them.