Limbo Rock

David Paterson is being good to all of us nostalgia buffs-bringing back as he is the Chubby Checker classic, "Limbo Rock," from 1962. As the song's chorus went: "Limbo lower now, Limbo lower now, How low can you go?" Which brings us, of course, to yesterday's Marist Poll.

As City Room reports: "For Gov. David A. Paterson, the numbers only seem to get worse. Two months ago, the Marist College Institute for Public Opinion found that the governor’s job approval rating was at the lowest point Marist had seen in the 27 years it has been surveying public opinion of New York governors. But the numbers have kept falling. In a new Marist poll released on Monday morning, only 19 percent of registered voters surveyed believe the governor is doing a good or excellent job. That was down from 26 percent in the survey released in March."

It's hard to see how the governor recovers from this record low in time to stave off a challenge from a very eager Andrew Cuomo; and as for the help provided by Rev. Sharpton, well, let's just say it is unlikely to lift this sinking boat. As the NY Daily News tells us, New Yorkers would prefer the disgraced ex-governor Eliot Spitzer to the plummeting Paterson: "A majority of New York voters would rather see Eliot Spitzer, the state's hooker-happy former governor, back in office than his beleaguered successor, Gov. Paterson, a new poll revealed Monday...Strikingly, even though Paterson is the state's first black governor, 53% of non-whites said they would prefer Spitzer as the state's chief."

The famous Sharpton defibrillator's not going to be able to revive this kind of moribund political carcass: "Exposing serious weakness in his leadership credentials, 66% of voters said Paterson does not have what it takes to lead the state and 48% said he doesn't get the critical issues facing New York." If this were Major Bowes' Amateur Hour, the gong would have already been sounded.