Take a look at the full court press by the left to stop Schwarzenegger. Are their votes going to go there? I can't believe that. I'm faced with the reality that the core democrat constituency will still wind up with Bustamante. The "NO"s aren't going to vote "NO", then for Schwarzenegger. They'd vote yes and Schwarzenegger if they were inclined to vote for him at all. IMO your comments don't address the "NO" votes.
Now, the meat of the issue. "The claims against Arnold will be true fact." Sadly those facts will not have been proven in a court of law. And you know what, that really pi--es me off. If my wife or girlfriend were attacked by ANYONE, I can guarantee you one millisecond wouldn't pass before they would be on their way to filing a formal complaint against that person. If I were assaulted in the manner you specify, I would call the police from the location and demand a patrol car be sent to start the investigation. I might not win my case, but I'd make sure there were a public record paper trail on the mother f---er who committed the attack. From that moment on the public would know that this person might be inclined to commit such an act again. And the next time someone was assulted, there'd be a record of a past charge.
Here I am presented with a report from a person I do not know, about a woman I do not know, in a circumstance I have no possible way of knowing all the facts about. If charges had been leveled, at least we'd have some known facts. What was her story on the record? What was his story on the record? Where did this take place? Who's story seemed more plausible? What kind of a person was she? What charges had been leveled against him in the past?
As it is I'm supposed to judge the man out of the blue based on a report he hasn't even been charged with in the public arena. To top it all off, the woman is now married and doesn't want to be any part of the telling of this story.
Perhaps this is something. Perhaps you are right. Perhaps the woman is of pristine character and perhaps he should be nowhere near public office. It sure would be nice to be able to verify any of this. It sure would be nice to see a conviction. It sure would be nice to have had this made public in a timely manner so women and citizens could be aware of the preditory nature of this person. And it would have been nice to see a person who was innocent until proven guilty given the chance to tell his side of it. He may be full of crap, but at least I'd like to give him some opportunity to respond before I decide to end his political career.
Perhaps there are ten or twenty women out there with stories to tell. If that is true, then he is only partly to blame for what he did to those women. If any three of them had filed charges against him, the man would not be a viable candidate for governor today. And it is certain that other women along the way would have been spared continued attacks.
I don't believe that 98% of women would have gladly slept with Schwarzenegger. Women have varried tastes in men. Some would have been flattered by his advances and many would have been repulsed by the advances of a married man.
You know your friend. You may be able to make an assessment which I cannot. I would need to know a whole lot more before I could buy into this. I do not think it is out of the question that Schwarzenegger engaged in this type of activity, but I simply cannot judge the yes or no of it on one person's second-hand report over the internet.
In my first marriage my wife wanted custody of our children. In order to position herself in front of the court and our children, she told the children that I had been beating her regularly in our home. We lived in a small home. She was actually able to convince those kids that this was true. Don't tell me that women are not able to spin things to their own ends. In divorce, in cases of spurned interest, in cases of wanting to benefit financially, in cases of women just wanting to bluster in front of friends, charges are sometimes made that are not true. I have no way of knowing what the reality of this situation is. As I said, perhaps you do.
If you can't vote for Arnold due to this, so be it. I would urge you to vote your conviction. If more on this were to develop after the election and it be proven that he was a rapist, you'd have my support to remove him from office. It is a real tragedy when these type of crimes go unreported and unprosecuted. We're looking at the worst possible result of that right now. Here's a guy that may or may not be a rapist. Sadly the background work that should have been handled in court wasn't done. That angers me as much as the thought of him actually doing this.
I was saying that I would not vote for him based on an incident I was told about several years ago while I saw with my own eyes another married leading actor trying to hook-up with a close female friend of mine during a Hollywood production. When she turned down this actor's repeated attempts to go party with him at the end of the day, she than told me about her encounter of about 10-years ago with Arnold.
Also the fact that I've seen with my own eyes several different women (willingly) being escorted by Arnold's assistants to wait inside Arnold's trailer on various sets, moments before Arnold also entered the same trailer alone, while we waited sometimes hours to set-up the next scene for shooting.
Again, I don't want to attack Arnold (or anyone else), but Arnold's sexist behavior is well known in the tight knit film industry.
Now, you have the LA Times (and Bob Mulholland) trying to exploit this election with some tales from a half dozen other women that Arnold may have sexually harrassed.
Please don't vote based on the LA Times, nor based on a comment I made on FR and buried in one of many discussion topics, since deleted.
And finally, if I never knew about my friends incident with Arnold, I would vote for him on the election day and pray for the best of luck on California's future.
In any case, I will still be praying for the ousting of Gray Davis and hoping to oust Barbara Boxer next.