Join Us…Your One Thread To All The California Recall News Threads! 
Want on our daily or major news ping lists? Freepmail DoctorZin
Posted on 09/29/2003 6:03:11 AM PDT by veronica
Chanting "Ar-nold! Ar-nold!" hundreds of supporters turned out Sunday for a glimpse of actor-turned-gubernatorial-candidate Arnold Schwarzenegger at an airplane hangar rally at Monterey Peninsula Airport.
"Whistle stops" used to be made at train stations from the balcony of a Pullman car. Now the whistles come from the engines of a private jet, taking Schwarzenegger and his entourage on a blitzkrieg tour of California.
Campaign workers handed out lawn signs and bumper stickers -- "Join Arnold. Let's bring California back!" -- and offered T-shirts for sale at $10 a pop.
Fans lined up outside the Monterey Jet Center hangar up to an hour before Schwarzenegger arrived, and security workers estimated the crowd at about 2,000.
The chanting crowd waved signs and got warm-up speeches from local Republican activists, including Marina Mayor Ila Mettee-McCutchon, real estate agent and past political candidate Jeff Davi, and Aracili Anderson, president of CLARO, the Salinas-based Coalition of Latin-American Republican Organizations.
Remarking on Democratic Lt. Gov. Cruz Bustamante's campaign of "no on recall, yes on Bustamante," Anderson criticized his call for voting along ethnic lines and contended that Latinos aren't fooled. "We had Davis I. Why would we want Davis II?"
The Seaside High School Spartan Band cranked out rally music and the crowd jumped for Arnold T-shirts thrown to it from the stage by Davi.
Schwarzenegger, in khaki trousers and a short-sleeved, open-necked white shirt, strode onto the stage to tell his followers that he was "not here as a movie star, but as a fellow citizen."
Friends in Hollywood, he said, have told him that he's crazy to run for governor.
"They tell me you've got everything in front of you. Why get into politics, have people destroy your character, your family?"
His answer, Schwarzenegger said, is that "California has given me everything I have. I wouldn't have a movie career, a family, all this, if I didn't come to this place of opportunity.
"This is the greatest state in the greatest country in the world. The problem is, we have no leadership."
In a 15-minute speech, he lambasted the Davis administration for a decline that has businesses and jobs leaving the state, for an energy crisis and for taxes and fees going up.
"I want to make this once again the Golden State," Schwarzenegger said. "We're mad as hell and we're not going to take it anymore."
The recall is an example of "we the people deciding if the politicians are doing a good job. If not, we have the obligation to take the government back."
The Davis response to the highest deficit in the state's history, Schwarzenegger said, is to "tax, tax tax, spend, spend, spend." He vowed that as governor the state would spend no more than it takes in in taxes, and "I'm not going to raise taxes and I will never cut education."
Schwarzenegger said he can go to Sacramento beholden to no special interests.
"They will try to push me around," the movie action hero and former world champion bodybuilder remarked, "but let me tell you something. I will push back!"
The speech concluded with the candidate hurling more T-shirts into the crowd and exiting to the Spartan Band's rendition of Twisted Sister's signature anthem, "We're Not Gonna Take It."
In Monterey? Jeepers! Must be every Republican within 50 miles showed up!
Now why would a high school band be used at a political rally? Honestly, I don't think I like this for any candidates - unless perhaps it was done on a volunteer basis. But even then, I dunno...
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.