Some politicians toil hard to go down in history and stand out in their chosen profession. This news proves that Democratic New York Governor David Paterson now truly stands out in his:
New York State voters disapprove 60 – 28 percent of the job Gov. David Paterson is doing, the lowest approval ever for a New York Governor, and say 63 – 22 percent that he does not deserve to be elected to a full four-year term, according to a Quinnipiac University poll released today.
Gov. Paterson’s approval is so low that he should announce now that he won’t run for election to a four-year term next year, 53 percent of voters tell the independent Quinnipiac (KWIN-uh-pe-ack) University poll, while 39 percent say he can restore his reputation and should run next year. Even Democrats say 49 – 45 percent that he should drop out of the race now.
But will he? The recent trend among political bigwigs is to tough it out — as politicians increasingly show their loyalty isn’t always to their constituents (who they always talked about serving) or their party (which they always insist is important to them).
Paterson’s poll numbers and bad press prove one thing: it isn’t only Republicans and corrupt Democratic Governors of Illinois who can alienate themselves into intense record-setting polling disapproval. Patterson’s political plight can’t be compared to George Bush’s (Bush’s was largely over policy). Or to Sarah Palin (who is now silly-stumbling herself in a way that is draining her political reservoirs and systematically shed parts of her image that were positive when she was named as Veep candidate).
Paterson’s stumbles have largely been over him being that rare breed of politician: a clearly poor one who is proving to have the septic touch as opposed to the golden touch.
And the longtime powerful Democratic party in New York is likely to pay the price…or will it?
New York State Attorney General Andrew Cuomo, with a near-record high 75 – 14 percent approval rating, tops Paterson in a Democratic primary 61 – 18 percent.
In a general election, Republican Rudolph Giuliani, the former New York City mayor, tops Paterson 53 – 32 percent.
Cuomo tops Giuliani 53 – 36 percent in a head-to-head matchup.
Voters disapprove 70 – 19 percent of the way Paterson is handling the New York State budget. Democrats disapprove 63 – 25 percent. “So long, David, voters tell Gov. Paterson. His job approval tanks at 28 percent. The slide started with the Caroline Kennedy flap and deepened with the humongous state budget passed last week. The budget was an opportunity for Paterson to reverse his slide, but voters disapprove almost 4-1 of the way he handled it,” said Maurice Carroll, director of the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute.
Meanwhile, the New York Daily News reports that top state Demmies are telling the Governor his numbers better improve by November or he’s outta there:
Top New York Democrats have privately set a deadline of early November for Gov. Paterson to turn his poll numbers around or they’ll urge him not to run next year.
“The idea is to let him get through the budget and get through the summer,” said a prominent Democratic donor who sees the fall elections as the cutoff for Paterson’s improvement.
“Nobody really wants to go to a sitting Democratic governor who’s African-American and say, ‘Hey. You’re a disgrace. Get out.'”
Paterson allies hold out hope he’ll be able to mount a timely comeback, but admit his historically low job approval rating – a March Siena poll pegged it at 19% – presents a significant challenge.
“Even if he went up 100%, it wouldn’t be much,” the donor said. “The goal is to be close to 50, but I think if he could climb over 40%, he can begin to show real momentum.”
The question is: Can he do it in time?
The problem for Paterson and the Democrats: it’s hard to believe the Governor can sufficiently recover from this kind of poll that shows that more and more New Yorkers are now saying: Mr. Patterson…get a new day job..
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.