Those who work in and around government sometimes wrongly assume that most people pay pretty close attention to what's going on in civic life. But I have found over the years that most people don't have time. They're working, playing, raising kids or looking after aging parents. Unless there is a crisis, government and politics take a back seat in their lives.

Yet I am continually and pleasantly surprised by how the public, while paying relatively little attention, seems to get things right most of the time. People manage to cut through the rhetoric, the spin, the propaganda and zero in on what matters. I might not always agree with their judgment, but it's rare that I conclude the voters have been fooled.

Consider the recall of former Gov. Gray Davis a year ago last week. The elites in both parties at first thought the move was a terrible idea, and establishment commentators from across the country and from the left and right condemned it. How dare California voters, they seemed to be saying, apply a remedy that was part of their constitution to rid themselves prematurely of a governor they considered incompetent. Such a rash act would lead to political chaos, a budget meltdown, a spiral of partisan recalls and worse, the experts warned.

But the voters ignored them. They did not just remove Davis, they replaced him with Arnold Schwarzenegger, a Hollywood actor who knew almost nothing about state government. How could a comic-book figure with no political experience govern a nation-state of 35 million people?

A Field Poll released last week showed how voters are feeling a year after the recall election. And the results once again suggest that the voters get it.

On the big picture, a plurality of voters, for the first time since 2001, say they think the state is heading in the right direction. Forty-six percent said "right direction" versus 38 percent who said "wrong track." A year ago that ratio was 16-to-76. So there is a sense that the ship has been righted and things are now getting better rather than worse.

How much credit does Schwarzenegger get for that change? The poll found that 65 percent of voters approve of his performance, compared to 22 percent who disapprove.

Republicans adore Schwarzenegger, giving him a job approval rating of 88 percent to 6 percent. Independents also like the job he is doing, by a margin of 64 percent to 25 percent. Even Democrats, by a margin of 46 percent to 34 percent, say he is doing a good job.

But when the pollsters probed a little deeper, they uncovered a more complex picture. Asked to what extent Schwarzenegger had fulfilled his promise to "change the way state government is run," just 11 percent said "a great deal" and 43 percent said "some." Thirty-eight percent said "a little" or "not at all."

On the question of how much Schwarzenegger had reduced "the power of special interests," the governor fared even worse. Only 5 percent of voters said "a great deal" while 32 percent said "some." Forty-one percent said "a little" or "not at all."

Asked to state in their own words ways in which Schwarzenegger has done a good job, nearly one-fourth of voters said he was decisive, a strong leader, a good politician or a man of action. The next largest group - 17 percent - said he was trying to control state spending and reduce the deficit.

Voters had a harder time finding things not to like, but 9 percent said he hadn't cut spending enough or had supported too much debt, while 6 percent said he had gone back on his promises or hadn't changed things much.

All of this makes perfect sense. Schwarzenegger does deserve credit for stabilizing the state's fiscal situation. He won voter approval for a deficit bond to replace one Davis had pushed in violation of a constitutional ban on borrowing without a vote of the people. The new governor also managed to reduce projected spending from $90 billion to about $80 billion, cutting the structural deficit in half. But he hasn't solved the problem, and has relied too much on borrowing to postpone making tough decisions.

Schwarzenegger also has largely failed to change the culture in Sacramento. He is raising money from private interests at a clip faster even than Davis, and he has embraced the art of the back-room deals that he promised to end.

Voters recognize these shortcomings, but they still like the job he is doing. Why? Because he has clearly spelled out an agenda and attacked it with focus and purpose. He rolled back an increase in the car tax, as promised, and repealed a bill that would have given driver's licenses to illegal immigrants. He restructured the state's debt, overhauled the workers' compensation program for people injured on the job and negotiated new agreements that give the taxpayers more of the take from Indian gambling.

Californians, then, seem to recognize that Schwarzenegger deserves credit for getting a lot done, but criticism for not trying to do more. As usual, the voters are on the mark.