SACRAMENTO — What started out as mere scuff marks on Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's battle armor has worsened into damaging corrosion.
The scuff marks were reported here three months ago, based on a statewide poll by the nonpartisan Public Policy Institute of California. It showed that Schwarzenegger still was popular -- 60% approved of his job performance, only 33% disapproved -- but Democrats were starting to sour on him. They particularly objected to his education policies.
Since then, the governor's overall approval rating has been falling in all public polls.
Now a new survey by the policy institute finds, for the first time, that significantly more people disapprove of Schwarzenegger's job performance than approve of it: 40% approve, 50% disapprove. Even among likely voters, who tend to be more conservative than the overall population, just 45% approve and 47% disapprove.
The poll points to a key reason for Schwarzenegger's slippage: Those education scuff marks have corroded his popularity.
He still gets roughly the same bad marks on education that he got in January: Only 28% approve of the way he is handling K-12 schools; 51% disapprove. But, unlike before, the ed ratings are substantially affecting his overall grade. Of those who flunk his school performance, 79% also disapprove of his overall job-handling. In January, only 51% did.
"There's a direct correlation," says PPIC pollster Mark Baldassare. "Schools have become symptomatic of people's fundamental concerns about his leadership style and abilities.
"People were giving Schwarzenegger the benefit of the doubt, even though they disagreed with him on education. Now, education is turning out to be a leading indicator of how they feel about his style of leadership."
There's also certainly a direct correlation between Schwarzenegger's plummeting popularity and the $5 million in TV attack ads run against him by the California Teachers Assn. and its education allies. The spots have pummeled Schwarzenegger for breaking his word to schools. Basically, he borrowed $2 billion from the school kitty to finance other state expenses and now isn't repaying it, as promised.
The governor is proposing an extra $2.9 billion for schools, but that's $2 billion short of what they're owed -- based on the deal he cut with them.
