Mike Bloomberg Hits Third-Term Poll Wall, Still Mum on Pre-Blizzard Whereabouts

The killing has begun. Today's latest Marist poll shows Bloomberg's approval rating at 37 percent, down 13 points from October, a tumble prompted by dithering during a blizzard and his pick of a no-background millionaire to run the city's education system.

That's the lowest mark recorded by Marist since Bloomberg took office in 2002.

"Mayor Bloomberg clearly will need a big shovel if he wants to dig himself out of this political storm, and it looks like the next opportunity is heading his way," says Lee Miringoff, Director of The Marist College Institute for Public Opinion.

The mayor's support is weakest in the most populous borough: More than one out of three Brooklynites questioned in the 600-person survey marked Bloomberg as doing a "poor" job in office (34 percent).

Deep in the poll's weeds, there is another warning marker for a man who harbors White House ambitions: The kids are not impressed. Seventy percent of the "Millennial" generation -- ages 18-29 -- listed the cutting-edge business billionaire's performance as just "fair" or "poor." Only 26 percent dubbed the I-Pad mayor as "excellent" or "good," way below the 38 percent of Gen Xers still raving about the Mayatollah.

The mayor is beginning the dig out today with what the Times calls a "blizzard level" attack on an expected five-inch snowfall. But he's drawn the line at fessing up where he was in the hours before the real blizzard hit on Christmas weekend.

"Why don't you say when you're out of town?" was the not unreasonable question from a reporter at the mayor's press conference yesterday.

"There's no reason to," sniffed the mayor.

WNYC's Azi Paybarah describes the moment: "After a few more questions, the mayor announced the event was over and walked out, just as another reporter was shouting an additional question."