Interesting. The 2 most approved-of Senators are in maine, and 2 of the 5 least approved-of are in Ohio. Think there's something in the water in those states that makes people consistently cheery in one and grumpy in the other?

Ohio's Governor is also the least popular. He was polling at about 17% (and that was before his recent indictment.) I think Buckeyes are just generally pissed off about how the Republicans have been behaving lately. It may or may not have something to do with the Senators in particular. Though, Dewine may have angered his base by being one of the group of 14 Senators who worked out a compromise with respect to the nuclear option and the judicial filibuster. Meanwhile, Voinivich probably angered the base by refusing to vote Bolton out of committee during the UN ambassador confirmation process.

The Republicans in Ohio generally are taking a beating because of some fairly significant corruption scandals, mostly involving Bureau of Worker's Compensation money. One off shoot of those scandals was a pretty minor infraction of ethics rules by Gov. Taft resulting in a misdemeanor conviction. He failed to report golf outings paid for by lobbyists on his ethics disclosure forms. (Probably wouldn't have amounted to much of anything if it hadn't been discovered in the context of revelations of something like $300 million lost by the state BWC, including about $12 million of a $50 million investment lost when it was invested in rare coins managed by a GOP mover and shaker.)

But, maybe I digress.

Don't forget 1 point in the Ohio governor issue...not only was he convicted and fined for improper donations from a lobbyist, but it just happened to be the same lobbyist who's the center of the rare coin scandal in that state.

Somehow I'd missed that Tom Noe was involved in the convictions. Did Noe pick up a golf tab for Taft or was it some other sort of donation?

In any case, the Ohio GOP is just lucky there isn't an effective Democratic Party in the state. Though, they may have just created one.

From Ohio here: we're po'd because the stupid mainstream, patrician Rs are acting like Ds in the way they tax and spend money. That's why they are unpopular.

Taft failed to disclose about 30 golf outings that had been paid for by others. It was OK if he disclosed it. Two of these were outings paid for ($100 each time) by Tom Noe, the person involved in the coin scandal.

Heh - the top conservative is one that can never get the nomination (from his own party, and the second-highest-scoring conservative is one that almost nobody outside of Idaho has heard of.

(Yes, McCain really is a conservative, First Amendment stances notwithstanding.)

The problems with this poll is that (1) it isn't of registered or likely voter, but just adults over 18+ and (2) that the calls made to conduct the poll were done my machine which leads to fewer people responding. (link)

So, to be honest, this poll really isn't all that terribly useful. Better than nothing, I suppose.

Rick santorum is DEAD LAST on the list with a -4% approval rating.

In another thread, it was mentioned that perhaps the extreme theocrat branch of the right might implode. It would appear that extremists on both sides may be in some danger. Is the country beginning to take a deep breath and is it then starting to reflect on what happens when we tell our leaders that leadership = machismo?