Four Michigan politicians were in the national media spotlight last week on subjects ranging from major economic issues on Capitol Hill to texting while driving. They had interesting contrasts in style.

There was Senator Carl Levin, best known as chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee grilling Pentagon officials on wars, at mid-week presiding at the Senate's Subcommittee on Investigations grilling Wall Street executives on its financial crisis and credit market collapse.

"Levin's expletives fall on Wall St. bankers," said a Detroit News headline regarding Levin's nationally televised repeated citing of some internal Goldman Sachs emails that 'fessed up that the firm was touting a bad deal on securities that the firm knew would tank for clients. News editorial cartoonist Henry Payne drew a catchy frame of Levin having had his mouth washed with soap.

Also with flair, Gov. Jennifer Granholm, who had been on CNN and elsewhere on national TV as a possible Supreme Court appointee and frequent guest talking about Michigan's worst-in-the-nation unemployment rate, signed into law a bill banning texting while driving.

It was signed Friday at a Detroit safe driving rally that was broadcast on Oprah Winfrey's TV show. A Michigan gubernatorial first.

With less flair, but of significance in the national political dialogue, U.S. Representative Pete Hoekstra of Holland, who leads in polling for the GOP nomination to replace term-limited Granholm, gave the Republican response to President Barack Obama's weekly radio and Internet address on Saturday.

Hoekstra, who as ranking Republican on the House Intelligence Committee periodically appears on national TV, noted that on that day Obama was to "deliver the commencement address at the University of Michigan, my alma mater.

"We also welcome the opportunity to show the President, first hand, the painful plight of the people of Michigan. Like countless Americans, they face fewer jobs and fewer opportunities today than when he took office. The Democrats have run Congress since 2007, and yet when the residents of Michigan and across America ask themselves are they better off now than they were four years ago, the answer is--inevitably--no."

As I monitored the Michigan Four on national media trails via print, TV, and laptop, I was particularly impressed with the solid, low key way that U.S. Representative Dave Camp (RMidland) performed at the April 27 meeting of the President's National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform, which was streamed on the Internet by the White House.

Camp, top Republican on the House Ways and Means Committee and one of three House Republicans on the commission, stressed at the meeting: "We have not one deficit to close, but two--a budget deficit and a public trust deficit."

He said "my district alone has five counties dangerously close to 20% unemployment. He later supplied these figures: Missaukee, 19.4; Clare, 19.3; Montcalm, 19.0; Roscommon, 18.9; Osceola, 18.0; and (adding a sixth) Kalkaska, 17.1.

Camp, who subsequently was interviewed on Fox News as Republican spin master on the issue, contended in his questioning during the commission hearing that the health-care reform passed by Congress would add to health care costs.

Subsequently, Camp and all other Republicans on the Ways and Means Committee asked Chairman Sander Levin (D-Royal Oak) to call a hearing "on estimates that the law will increase health care spending over $300 billion, includes over one-half trillion in cuts to Medicare that could jeopardize seniors' access to care, and will result in 14 million Americans losing their employer-provided health benefits."

In the wake of another U.S. Supreme Court's denial of a bid by Michigan and other states to block invasion of Asian carp into Lake Michigan, there is a renewed push for passage of the bipartisan CARP Act in Congress introduced by Camp and Senator Debbie Stabenow. It seeks an immediate closure of navigational locks and canals leading to the lake, and an order to the Army Corps of Engineers to build permanent barriers to block carp.

Co-champion with Camp and Stabenow on the national scene against Asian carp is Attorney General Mike Cox, another GOP contender for governor, who along with six other AGs sought action by the Supreme Court.

Underscoring urgency of the Camp-Stabenow legislation after the court's decision not to reopen the "Chicago Diversion" case or to open a new case to address the Asian carp threat, Cox said:

"The fight to protect Michigan's jobs and environment now falls to President Obama and Congress. While President Obama has turned a blind eye to the millions of Great Lakes residents who do not happen to live in his home state of Illinois, it is now up to him to save thousands of Michigan jobs and our environment."

Odds are, Obama's blind eye will remain. Our best hope may be legislation being pushed by Democrat Stabenow and Republican Camp. It will be a test of their clout and that of Great Lakes states other than Obama's Illinois.

George Weeks retired in 2006 after 22 years as political columnist for The Detroit News. His weekly Michigan Politics column is syndicated by Superior Features.