Hey, Guess What, David Paterson is Still Really Unpopular

The Quinnipiac University Polling Institute’s been busy. Yesterday they released a poll on the legislature and how much we hate our state. Now they have new numbers on the Governor and other local characters. Will it surprise you to learn Paterson is unpopular? He’s hanging in with a 61 percent disapproval rating, the same as last month; a Quinnipiac spokesman says this means Paterson has “bottomed out.” (We’re not sure — what’s the opposite of “Excelsior”?)

Poll respondents also showed their usual enthusiasm for Andrew Cuomo, and almost half of them still don’t know why people keep asking them about this Kirsten Gillibrand woman, is she in show business or something? Despite her 48 percent don’t-know rating, Gillibrand clearly has some enemies because Carolyn Maloney, the last elected anti-Gillibrand Democrat who hasn’t been rubbed out by the Obama Administration, actually beats her in a senate matchup, 27-23. (Maverick Jonathan Tasini gets 4 percent. Hang in there, big guy!) Either one of them would beat Republican front-stumbler Pete King, the poll shows.