Dead stuff freaks me out. But hey, nice tanning booth results!

A new CNN poll shows what a poor decision John McCain made when he caved in to Karl Rove and Steve Schmidt and selected Sarah Palin as his running mate. She is dragging the Republican ticket down by at least two percentage points.

Pollsters asked likely voters how they would choose if they could vote for the vice president all alone, without the candidate being tied to a presidential contender.

“Just after the GOP convention in early September, 53 percent said they would vote for Palin over Joe Biden if there were a separate vote for vice president. Now, Biden would beat Palin by 12 points if the running mates were chosen in a separate vote,” said CNN Polling Director Keating Holland.

Given the same option in voting for president, the difference was evident. If it were just Obama against just McCain, Obama would win 52 percent to 48. Add Palin on McCain’s side and the number goes down to 46 percent for the Republican team, giving Obama a six-point edge.

On the one hand, I’m glad McCain is a spineless megalomaniac who will do anything to be president including selling his soul, which he clearly has. On the other hand, I’m appalled that he’s loosed Sarah Palin on the world. Of course, someone like her, with the glint of the zealot in her eye, would have probably oozed out sooner or later anyway.

Video: On Fox News today, Joe the Plumber, the man whom John McCain has chosen to represent the working-class everyman, questioned whether Barack Obama is a loyal American.

This new ad from the No on 8 side plays off the fact that Mormons have donated $11 million, or about 40 percent, of the funding for Proposition 8, which is appropriately being referred to as “Prop Hate.” If the Mormons get their way and the prop passes, the California Constitution will be amended to prevent gay marriage, which has been legal since June.

The ad’s tagline is exactly right: “Say no to a church taking over your government.”

It’s been lost in all the coverage of the presidential campaign, but Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s approval rating in California has plummeted again. In the most recent poll, taken in September, only 38 percent of Californians had a favorable opinion of the governor.

This puts Schwarzenegger’s unpopularity within range of the 35 percent approval rating he received in 2006. He won reelection the next year by swinging wildly to the left, and by filling his campaign with Democrats — as well as at least one Bush-Rove operative, Steve Schmidt, who has become infamous this year as the mastermind of John McCain’s campaign.

Speaking of which, it appears that Schwarzenegger’s movie star appeal outside California has lost its luster, too. On Thursday, he appeared with John McCain at a campaign event in Columbus, Ohio, and even with the combined billing of California’s movie star governor and the putative next leader of the free world, the venue was only filled to half its capacity:

[The appearance of McCain and Schwarzenegger] at Nationwide Arena drew what was a large crowd for McCain, but about half the arena was empty. Four years ago when Schwarzenegger campaigned in the same venue for Bush, the arena was packed to capacity with about 20,000 people.

One trait Schwarzenegger shares with George Bush is a sense of humor that relies heavily on locker-room towel-snapping:

Schwarzenegger long has sponsored an annual bodybuilding competition in Columbus, and he joked that he hoped to invite Obama next time because “he needs to do something with those skinny legs.”

“We’re going to make him do some squats, and then we’re going to give him some biceps curls to beef up those scrawny little arms. But if you only could do something about putting some meat on his ideas,” Schwarzenegger said.

Har-har.

McCain and Schwarzenegger won’t be campaigning together in California, because the last three statewide polls show McCain losing to Barack Obama by jaw-droppingly large margins — 27, 23 and 22 percentage points.

There has been some good news lately for Schwarzenegger in California, however. The prison guard’s union — reputedly the most powerful union in the state, which, if so, is an ugly sign of the times — has dropped its effort to recall the governor next year. Last month, the language for the recall petition they submitted was rejected by the secretary of state, a Democrat, because of technical issues. The union decided not to refile the petition language, but rather to let Schwarzenegger twist in the wind until he is term-limited out of office in 2010.

On Wednesday, we reported that John McCain was behind Barack Obama in California by 27 points in the Rasmussen poll and by 23 points in the PPIC survey. On Thursday, the highly respected Field Poll added confirmation that there will be a landslide for Obama in the Golden State on Tuesday:

THE POLL: The Field Poll on the presidential race among likely votes in California (55 electoral votes).

THE NUMBERS: Barack Obama, 55 percent; John McCain, 33 percent.

Of INTEREST: If the poll accurately reflects the outcome on Election Day, it would be the most lopsided presidential election in California since Democrat Franklin Roosevelt beat Republican Alfred Landon by 35 percentage points in 1936.

Of course, the only thing that could stop the landslide now is if Democrats, particularly younger ones, assume their vote won’t matter and “flake” on Election Day.

On the other hand, opposition to Proposition 8, the ballot measure that would end gay marriage, would benefit if Republicans are so dispirited that they decide not to vote. Polls show the measure losing by a close margin of 49 percent to 44 percent, with 7 percent undecided.