Schwarzenegger: down, not out.

DEMOCRATS sniff blood, Arnold's blood. At their recent state convention in Los Angeles, the parade of Democratic wannabe gubernatorial candidates saber-rattled Gov. Schwarzenegger mercilessly. They blame him for everything from dumping the poor and elderly on the streets to taking milk out of newborn babies' bottles. The Democrats are emboldened enough by his recent nosedive in polls to blister Schwarzenegger.

A recent poll by the Public Policy Institute of California, a San Francisco-based non-partisan political group, found that his approval ratings have plunged more than 15 percentage points since January. Less than half of Californians say they approve of the job he's doing. The ratings dive is directly tied to Schwarzenegger's stealth war with the state's public employee unions and teachers' associations. They are furious at him for his proposals to scale back public employee pensions and to slash education spending.

But the reports of his demise are premature. The poll also found that a majority of voters agree with the bulk of Schwarzenegger's education reform proposals. He has called for linking teacher's pay to merit performance, and for raising teacher-training standards. They also agree that taxes must not be hiked, and that state spending must be reined in.

Schwarzenegger has raised millions to launch an advertising blitz to counter union claims that his legislative program will lead to chaos. If Schwarzenegger can spell out how his education and spending reforms will improve the schools, he'll again be hailed as the state's white knight.

His biggest trump card, though, is voter dissatisfaction with the way the state is being run. That was the reason Californians dumped Gray Davis. Schwarzenegger's inexperience in government, his disconnect from partisan party politics, his promise to back or devise a budget accountability law that imposed fiscal order on the state's tax and spending policies played big with the state's voters. They play just as big today.

Davis and the state legislators created safe districts mostly to protect their turf. They then scuttled an attempt at a true open primary where voters could cross party lines to vote for the best person, and not the best party person.

Schwarzenegger says that he will storm the barricades to get open primaries and a fair re-redistricting. This would give voters a genuine chance to hear candidates and incumbents publicly air their views on the issues. That's a long-overdue reform that screams for action.

The legislature won't take that action. It almost certainly will require a ballot initiative: Schwarzenegger says that he'll fight for it and let voters settle the issue. The battle will boost Schwarzenegger's stock in the voter's eyes.

Schwarzenegger has revamped Davis' hardline stance on paroles, pledged to reverse the no-win lock-'em-up-and-throw-away-the-key-approach to crime reduction, put more emphasis on rehabilitation, and vowed to hold the line on state spending. These reform measures are in tune with the wishes of the majority of the state's voters. But education is still the biggest sore point for Californians.

In the institute's poll, voters made it clear that they regard education as their No. 1 priority. If Schwarzenegger can get even a marginal bump-up in student performance levels, he'll be praised to the sky.

So Schwarzenegger e may be down, but he's not out. But he'd better move fast before the next poll numbers roll in and the grins on the Democrats' face widen even more.

Earl Ofari Hutchinson is a local TV talk show host and political analyst and the author of "The Crisis in Black and Black" (Middle Passage Press).