Expect a lot of chatter in the next few days about this morning’s poll from the Public Policy Institute of California… another poll with shrinking job approval ratings for Arnold Schwarzenegger.

You can read the poll here.

In a nutshell, the PPIC tracks the governor’s overall numbers down from 60% approval in January to 40% approval now. That’s even lower than the poll earlier this month from San Jose State University.

Dig a little deeper into the new PPIC data and it seems Schwarzenegger has lost the most ground with Democrats (68% now disapprove) and independents (49% disapproval)… two groups that helped him win office in 2003.

Also of interest: even larger percentages of Latinos and African-Americans surveyed now disapprove of how the governor’s doing his job than in previous polls… and only 28% of all surveyed adults approve of how he’s handling the needs of California’s schools. The latter comes on the heels of Wednesday’s sudden resignation of Education Secretary Richard Riordan.

To be fair, polls are only a snapshot in time. But even after Schwarzenegger denied earlier this week that the whispers of trouble are anything but “great drama”, some well-placed Republicans privately say that the governor’s advisers seem to be suffering from a case of political tone deafness.

Those same Republicans credit the anti-Schwarzenegger political ads and rallies in recent weeks with the new softening poll numbers… and wonder why there’s been so little of what’s called “push back” in answering the criticisms.