Bev Perdue’s approval rating is on the rise! Of course when it was 25% a month ago that’s not saying much, the PPP reports.

Barack Obama may have taken North Carolina by the smallest of margins in November, but PPP’s newest survey finds that he’s won over a lot of voters in the state in the subsequent 11 weeks.

WASHINGTON – On the eve of his presidential inauguration, Barack Obama enjoys stronger public support than he did on Election Day. More Americans approve of him now than voted for him, and he wins the optimism test hands down.

Pollsters routinely ask people right before inaugurations if they’re optimistic or pessimistic about the next four years with the incoming president. Eight in 10 people say they’re optimistic about the next four years with Obama, according to the New York Times/CBS News Poll released Sunday. To get 80 percent of Americans to agree on anything is phenomenal.

Four years ago, 58 percent of people said they were optimistic about the next four years with George W. Bush, and he’s leaving office with about 22 percent of people approving of his job performance.

Democratic presidents tend to ride in on waves of optimism. Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter both entered office with 70 percent optimism scores.

So, the inevitable question: Is this as good as it gets for the 44th president?

Likely, it is. The problem with the bright, effervescent inaugural euphoria that has happily infected so many around the country is that there’s a cure. It’s called Wednesday.

Enjoy today and Tuesday — the enthusiastic crowds, the pomp of the swearing-in, stirring patriotic words and music, the parade, the balls. Come Wednesday, Obama is the incumbent president. No longer will it be Bush’s war, Bush’s failed economy or Bush’s bloated federal deficit. Obama is inheriting them all.

To be sure, Americans always give new presidents the benefit of the doubt. Obama will start his term way ahead of his predecessors in the affection of the public, and polls indicate that people are willing to give him time to clean up the messes. But, let’s face it, people are impatient. Already, the European pundits are starting to complain he won’t be able to fix everything.

For his part, Obama has started adding ballast to control the public opinion balloon. At the concert at Lincoln Memorial Sunday afternoon, he said, “In the course of our history, only a handful of generations have been asked to confront challenges as serious as the ones we face right now.”

He named war, an economy in crisis, people worried about paying bills and college tuition and their grave uncertainty about the future.

“I won’t pretend that meeting any one of these challenges will be easy. It will take more than a month or a year, and it will likely take many. Along the way there will be setbacks and false starts and days that test our resolve as a nation,” he said.

So there it is. But Obama also offered the hope he’s famous for, calling on the people to join together.

“Never forget that the true character of our nation is revealed not during times of comfort and ease, but by the right we do when the moment is hard,” he said.

And that made people cheer again.

What do you think? Comment at mgwashington.com or e-mail mmercer@mediageneral.com.

NEW YORK – Who’s running for president, anyway?

Far more people watched Thursday’s vice presidential debate between Joe Biden and Sarah Palin on television than watched the first presidential debate.

Nielsen Media Research says preliminary ratings in the nation’s 55 biggest markets were up 42 percent from the same measurement of John McCain and Barack Obama’s first encounter last Friday.

Nielsen’s specific estimate of how many people watched Thursday night will be out later, but indications are it will be one of the most-watched political debates ever.

Curiosity over Palin’s performance undoubtedly played a role, but don’t discount timing: More people generally watch television on Thursdays than Fridays.

NEW YORK – The first debate between John McCain and Barack Obama, seen by an estimated 52.4 million viewers on Friday, was one of the first events of the presidential campaign that was not a huge TV hit.

The audience was 10 million less than the first debate between President Bush and Democratic challenger John Kerry in 2004, according to Nielsen Media Research on Monday.

It wasn’t even one of the 10 most-watched presidential debates, falling well short of the record 80.6 million people who saw the only debate between President Carter and Ronald Reagan in 1980, Nielsen said.

Nielsen’s count includes 11 networks that televised the debate: ABC, CBS, Fox, NBC, CNN, Fox News Channel, MSNBC, CNBC, BBC America, Telemundo and Telefutura. Nielsen did not have estimates of the audience for the non-commercial PBS and C-SPAN.

Two factors may have held the audience down:
      – It wasn’t clear until midday Friday that the debate was even taking place; McCain earlier in the week had called for it to be postponed because of the nation’s financial crisis but changed his mind on Friday and agreed to participate.
      -Friday traditionally has fewer viewers than any other night but Saturday because more people are going out.

Still, the 52.4 million would make it the most popular television event since the Super Bowl.

The debate between vice presidential contenders Joe Biden and Sarah Palin is scheduled for Thursday, usually a big night for TV viewing. The most-watched vice presidential debate ever was in 1984, when 56.7 million people watched Vice President Bush take on Geraldine Ferraro, the first woman on a major party ticket.