At the risk of mixing metaphors, when it comes to California's elected leaders steering us through the state's current dark and perilous economic seas, Susan Priddy figures we're in deep tapioca.

Priddy, a 48-year-old Yuba City high school English teacher, isn't alone in her figuring.

A Field Poll released Tuesday reported that more Californians (46 percent) disapprove of the job Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger is doing than approve (40 percent.)

And the governor looks like an over-achiever compared with the Legislature. More than twice as many poll respondents (57 percent) hold the collective performance of legislators in disrepute than think they are doing OK (27 percent).

"I think they are a bunch of politicians who are more interested in getting re-elected than doing anything," said Priddy, who used to be a Republican but re-registered about 18 months ago as a Democrat – and isn't overwhelmed with joy by her new party, either.

"I don't know if the governor or the Legislature is worse. It's a little like the chicken and the egg."

While approval ratings for lawmakers are historically dismal – the last time legislators got near a 50 percent approval level was in 2000 – the latest numbers continue a curious roller-coaster performance by the governor.

In his full first year in 2004, about two-thirds of survey respondents thought Schwarzenegger was doing a swell job. Those numbers dropped as low as 36 percent in 2005 and rebounded as high as 60 percent last December before dropping back to the 40 percent mark in the latest survey.

Mark DiCamillo, the Field Poll's director, said the low numbers for both Schwarzenegger and lawmakers can be attributed in part to the economy's general malaise.

The poll found just 21 percent of Californians think the state is headed in the right direction, while 68 percent believe it's on the wrong track. Those numbers are slightly below a 23/68 split in May, and well below the 43/47 split the poll found last December.

"I'm optimistic in the long term," said Priddy, the high school teacher, "but in the short term, I don't think we've hit bottom."

DiCamillo said that while the declining economic situation is in part responsible for the low approval ratings, "the (state) budget is part of it, too."

Three weeks into the new fiscal year, legislators and the governor are mired in a budget mess that features a $15.2 billion general fund gap between revenue and spending – and no consensus on how to plug it.

DiCamillo said the governor's frequent trips around the state to the scenes of wildfires and other events have done nothing to enhance his standing with voters.

"If he is trying to do things to improve his image, they've been counteracted by the declining confidence the public has that he and legislators are going to resolve this deficit," he said.

Tuesday's poll found that 58 percent have some or a great deal of confidence that Schwarzenegger will "do what is right" to solve the budget mess (down from 69 percent in December). Just 46 percent had the same levels of confidence in the Legislature (down from December's 55 percent.)

Cathy King, a 53-year-old retiree in Loomis, is confident the Capitol's inhabitants will bungle things – but figures it's not the governor's fault.

"We can't keep blaming the guy at the top … for having his hands tied by the Legislature we vote in," King said. "The only thing that is going to do any good is to get some informed voters out there at the polls."

Not all of those surveyed expressed gloomy views.

Rose Johnson, a 31-year-old Republican homemaker from Jones Valley, north of Redding, said she thought "the governor is doing the best he can," and had "some confidence" Schwarzenegger and legislators would come up with a plausible budget plan.

"You never say you have absolute confidence," she said, "but I think they're trying … so I guess I'm pretty confident."

But Johnson also acknowledged that she is largely unaffected, at least directly, by the impact of a stalled budget.

"My mother-in-law works for the state, so I guess I'm sort of affected," she said.

Over in Palo Cedro, a Shasta County community east of Redding, Michael Wickland was more resigned than pessimistic.

"I'm no economist," said Wickland, a 57-year-old retired county mental health official and a Democrat, "but the dire predictions they come out with every spring never turn out as bad as they sound.

"It's always 'the sky is falling,' and it turns out to be just a major storm."

Call Steve Wiegand, Bee Capitol Bureau, (916) 321-1076.