Governor M. Jodi Rell continues to enjoy overwhelming support from the public while U.S. Sen. Chris Dodd’s popularity has nosedived, according to a new poll by Quinnipiac University.

Gov. Rell has a positive rating of 68 percent which has been holding s steady for most of the year. The voters and people like and trust Gov. Rell as new challenges present themselves to the Legislature concerning the $6 billion shortfall. Gov. Rell has been working effectively to cut discretionary spending to close the FY 09 budget gap – set to close on June 30.

Rell has said taxes are not a option in this recessionary environment and that all spending and other government reform ideas are on the table. That is welcome news to taxpayers who know Democrats see the shortfall as nothing more than a revenue problem to be solved by an increase in taxes on income, savings, investments and of course, death.

Sen. Dodd is in a lot of trouble with the lowest ratings of his entire career. His approval rating of 47 percent and disapproval of 41 percent has been trending downward since July when news of  his two sweetheart mortgage deals with Countrywide Financial were first revealed.

More ominously, only 44 percent of the poll said they would to reelect Dodd to a sixth term.

Dodd refuses to release the mortgage documents surrounding these two deals, which has had a corrosive affect on the incumbents numbers.

But it is more than that. Voters were not happy with Dodd’s ego trip Presidential campaign which diverted his attention to the mounting financial crisis. During his time in Iowa, the storm clouds were gathering.

Once Dodd returned to watch our financial institutions collapse – it became very apparent to voters that the chairman of the Banks Committee had sold his soul to the very company’s who had leveraged our economy into a ditch. The roll call of the donors to Dodd who were playing financial games is long and distinguished – AIG, Fannie Mae and Freddie

Mac, Lehman Brothers and of course, Countrywide Financial.

As Connecticut home owners watch their equity go up into thin air, Chris Dodd keeps his homes and his cushy deals. People are figuring it out.

The latest billion dollar payoff to the incompetence of the Big Three Auto maker and their equally clueless UAW partners, demonstrates Chris Dodd is truly out of his league.

But Chris Dodd can be happy about one thing – Sen. Joe Lieberman has even worse ratings. Lieberman has an approval rating of 38 percent and a disapproval rating of 54 percent – the lowest ratings ever by the Q poll save for former U.S. Sen. Robert “The Torch” Torricelli, who was also in tank until he resigned in disgrace in 2002.

Lieberman has until 2012 to pull his head about water, but Dodd is treading.

” Sen. Dodd’s low approval rating is bad news for any incumbent, but at this point there is no strong Republican challenger on the horizon as Dodd faces re-election in 2010,” said Douglas Schwartz, the poll’s director.