* 54 percent favoring and 37 percent opposed is not a “slim” majority, but here’s the Tribune’s new poll on whether Rod Blagojevich should be retried…

A slim majority statewide, 54 percent, agreed with Fitzgerald’s decision [to retry Blagojevich], while 37 percent disagreed. Another 10 percent had no opinion in the survey of 600 registered Illinois voters conducted Aug. 28-Sept. 1. The error margin was 4 percentage points.

More interesting numbers…

In Chicago, 35 percent of voters favored retrial and 51 percent opposed it. But 54 percent of those in the Cook County suburbs and 57 percent of those in the collar counties agreed with the notion that Blagojevich should be retried, the survey found. […]

By a slight margin, voters who identified themselves as Democrats were more inclined to disagree with the decision to retry Blagojevich, the survey found. On the other hand, more than 7 out of 10 Republican voters surveyed said they backed a retrial.

There was also a stark difference between white and black voters on the issue. White voters were for a retrial by a wide margin: 60 percent to 31 percent. The position of black voters was almost the reverse: 63 percent against a retrial and 25 percent in favor.

The takeaway: US Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald is gonna have to present a far better case next time if he wants to convict this clown with that jury pool.

* Meanwhile, Judge Zagel overreacts…

The federal judge handling Rod Blagojevich’s case said [yesterday] afternoon that after the former governor’s retrial, he will not release jurors’ names immediately after the verdict.

Instead, he plans to wait 24 hours after a verdict is in to make the names public, he said.

“That’s based on the experience some jurors had with the prompt release,” U.S. District Judge James Zagel said.

He gave the media until Nov. 1 to file any objections (as they did the last time around) disputing his closure of the names. The new trial is expected to begin early next year.

This is the same judge that advised jurors to call 911 if they didn’t like reporters’ questions.

* More case business…

Also at Wednesday’s hearing, Zagel set several deadlines for attorneys. Prosecutors will have to notify him by Nov. 15 about any major expansion of the case - though the judge said that wouldn’t include notice about new witnesses the government many want to call.

Zagel also said he expected the retrial to take no longer than 2 1 / 2 months. The first trial initially was expected to last more than four months, but ended up running about 2 1 / 2 .

One reason a second trial could be expected to take less time is that Blagojevich now is the lone defendant. Last month, prosecutors dropped a bombshell by dismissing all charges against the ex-governor’s co-defendant, his brother Robert Blagojevich.

Zagel set the next status hearing for Oct. 1.