Should Gov. Paterson’s agenda include re-election?

Increasingly, the responsible answer to this question appears to be No.

A new Marist poll released today shows David Paterson bumping along at a 20% approval rating.

He’s been stuck there for months.

You could have a lot of morbid fun riffing on just how crummy those numbers are.

When seventy percent of New Yorkers think you’re unelectable, it’s time to think about turning the ship toward shore.

I’ll admit to a certain ambivalence about our collective response to Paterson. Has he hung the moon during his tenure? Of course not.

But he has emerged as sort of the Gerald Ford of our political moment: an essentially decent and good-humored man, elevated in crisis and saddled with some untenable choices.

He’s done what even Republicans have failed to do in New York, which is wrangle with the public employee unions.

At a time when nearly every other politician in Albany was sinking into the mire of the state Senate controversy, Paterson maintained a sort of bewildered sanity.

New Yorkers don’t care. They want their massive government — jobs, benefits, the whole shooting match — without paying for it. If a Governor can’t deliver, he’s out.

Does that make New York state ungovernable?

My guess is, No.

But it does look like Paterson lacks whatever chemistry it is (a mix of charm, wealth and savagery, I’m guessing) that will get the job done.

It may be that, like Ford, he will be remembered for what he is able to get done in a single term, with a poorly-dealt hand.

If so, he needs to get busy with that agenda, the one that pushes New York forward without regard to surviving in 201o.