Michigan Republicans sense a prime opportunity to take back their state governor's seat in 2010, after two terms with Democrat Jennifer M. Granholm. But the state party is far from unified over who their best candidate is to take on likely Democratic nominee John Cherry.

Two polls released last week -- one by non-partisan Inside Michigan Politics and by GOP firm Mitchell Research & Communications Inc. -- showed state Attorney General Mike Cox continues to lead a crowded Republican primary field, with U.S. Rep. Peter Hoekstra not far behind. Oakland County Sheriff Mike Bouchard, technology entrepreneur Rick Snyder and state Sen. Tom George are also in the mix. None of the candidates topped 30 percent, however.

The poll for the newsletter Inside Michigan Politics found that a quarter of likely Republican voters were undecided and the Mitchell Research poll found nearly a third were unsure.

Cox and Bouchard lead Cherry in head-to-head match-ups, the two polls show.

Michigan Secretary of State Terri Lynn Land announced Thursday that she is not going to enter the already crowded 2010 race for governor.

The unexpected move by Land -- who was widely assumed to be a candidate in the open-seat race -- came with another surprise, as she endorsed one of the declared Republican contenders: Michael J. Bouchard, the sheriff of populous Oakland County in suburban Detroit and a former state senator, who was the GOP's unsuccessful challenger to Democratic Sen. Debbie Stabenow in 2006.

Bouchard on June 3 officially launched his campaign for the 2010 contest to choose the successor to two-term Democratic incumbent Jennifer M. Granholm, who is barred from running again under Michigan's term-limit law.

George Perles, a former Michigan State University (MSU) football coach and athletic director, told the Detroit Free Press he plans to run for governor as a Democrat in 2010.

Perles' election as an MSU trustee by state voters in 2006 was his only previous campaign for public office, but he told the paper he believes his public prominence in the sports-mad state can help him in an election. "Name recognition is a big thing," said Perles, who turns 75 years old on July 16. "You get attention in both the political pages of the newspaper and the sports pages. It's a unique situation."

Perles certainly has plenty of football credentials. After his career as an MSU player was cut short by injury, Perles served as an assistant coach from 1959 to 1970, a period that included the Spartans' championship era in the mid-1960s. He segued to more than a decade as an assistant coach of the NFL's Pittsburgh Steelers during their Super Bowl glory days.