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Posted on 10/04/2003 10:30:30 PM PDT by hotpotato
MERCED, Calif. - Arnold Schwarzenegger went on the attack Saturday, denouncing the latest sexual harassment allegations made against him and charging that all the 11th-hour accusations were intended to wreck his campaign for governor.
"The last accusations that I read today are absolutely untrue," Schwarzenegger said during a stop near Clovis. "They're trying to torpedo my campaign. They're trying to make me look bad out there so that people vote no."
But Schwarzenegger, who admitted Thursday that he had treated some women badly in the past, also referred to past behavior Saturday, saying he will work to convince voters that "this is a different Arnold."
The action star also said that "the environment in today's politics is totally different on the subject of women, it is much more sensitive today." He added that he will be "extra careful ... even if there is any move from a female on my part."
Media attention to the allegations led Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney to cancel plans to campaign Monday for the actor. Romney said he still supports Schwarzenegger but wanted to avoid "sideshow politics" surrounding Tuesday's gubernatorial recall election and that it had become to difficult to focus on important issues.
The harassment allegations earned Schwarzenegger criticism from his rivals in the final debate of the campaign, which the actor sat out.
Democratic Lt. Gov. Cruz Bustamante said if one of his three daughters had experienced the groping Schwarzenegger is alleged to have committed "it wouldn't have taken a campaign to resolve it."
Green Party candidate Peter Camejo suggested Schwarzenegger has gotten away with harassing women all these years because he's rich, white and famous.
"If he were a black man, he'd be in jail. If he was brown, he'd be in jail. If he were a poor white he'd be in jail," said Camejo. "What does it tell us about our society that a rich white person can do the type of things that he's alleged to have done?"
State Sen. Tom McClintock, Schwarzenegger's main Republican rival, agreed that the accusations were serious and called for investigation. But he added extra caution was needed because the allegations surfaced so close to Tuesday's election.
Davis, in San Diego on Saturday, noted Schwarzenegger has acknowledged mistreatment of women.
"Electing a governor who might have committed a crime is going to distract the state from the work it has to do," he said.
A poll released late Saturday indicated that the support for recalling Davis might be slipping, although it still showed most voters favored removing him.
The Knight Ridder poll, conducted Wednesday through Saturday, found that 54 percent of respondents supported the recall and 41 percent opposed it. The percentage of people saying they would definitely vote to oust Davis, however, declined among those surveyed Friday and Saturday.
The poll of 1,000 registered voters, conducted by Elway/McGuire Research and posted on the San Jose Mercury News Web site, had a margin of error of plus or minus 3.2 percentage points. It also showed Schwarzenegger still leading among potential replacements for Davis, with 36 percent support compared to 29 percent for Bustamante.
The Davis campaign said its internal polling showed support and opposition to the recall vote was running even after word of the allegations. The Schwarzenegger camp said its polls showed a slight movement in favor of Schwarzenegger. Before the remarks, polls showed the recall passing and Schwarzenegger leading the candidates to replace Davis.
Davis flew around the state with several big-name Democrats in a final effort to persuade people to vote no on the recall. Recent polls showed more than 50 percent of likely voters want him removed from office. Bustamante and McClintock also made campaign appearances.
Much of the focus remained on the front-runner Schwarzenegger, however, after the Los Angeles Times reported Thursday that six women claimed he groped or sexually harassed them between 1975 and 2000.
After the story was published, five other women came forward to report similar incidents, including two who said Friday the actor harassed them on the set of the 1988 film "Twins."
Another woman said she was an intern at CNN in the early 1980s when Schwarzenegger groped her buttocks and made untoward remarks about her anatomy as she was escorting him to a set.
The actor's campaign organized a news conference Saturday at which a Hollywood publicist and two "Twins" cast members denied sexual harassment allegations. Campaign spokesman Sean Walsh accused the Times of "irresponsible journalism" and bias. The Times denied the accusation.
In Merced, where he was joined by his wife, Maria Shriver, Schwarzenegger joked briefly about the allegations, hugging a supporter at an In-N-Out burger but then pretending to resist, saying, "Don't do it! Don't do it! Otherwise it will be in the paper again."
Schwarzenegger said he suspected the governor's supporters were behind the allegations, but Davis has denied any connection. The Times has said none of the first six accusers were put in touch with the newspaper by any of Schwarzenegger's opponents. The others came forward after the first story broke.
The Austrian-born candidate also has been accused late in the campaign of expressing admiration for Adolf Hitler nearly 30 years ago.
Transcripts from a book proposal by George Butler, who directed "Pumping Iron," the 1977 bodybuilding documentary that brought Schwarzenegger to mainstream attention, quoted the actor as expressing admiration for Hitler not for what he did, but for rising to power with little formal education, and for his public speaking abilities.
The Democratic National Committee (news - web sites) issued a resolution Saturday calling on Schwarzenegger to apologize for the alleged Hitler remarks. The action star — who has said repeatedly that he despises Hitler and cannot recall ever saying anything in favor of him — dismissed the move as "sleaze politics."
Rabbi Marvin Hier, dean of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, said that if Schwarzenegger did express admiration for Hitler he should apologize. But he added that the actor has worked on the center's behalf for years, donating hundreds of thousands of dollars and speaking out in favor of its pro-tolerance programs.
"For the 20 years that I've known Arnold, I can say without reservations, he is not an anti-Semite, he is not a supporter of neo-Nazis or racists," Hier said in a telephone interview Saturday from Jerusalem.
Meanwhile, Austrian gym owner Kurt Marnul told The Associated Press on Saturday that as a teenager Schwarzenegger helped break up neo-Nazi rallies at least twice.
"It's absurd. It's 100 percent wrong that he could have ever liked Hitler," Marnul said at his gym, where the former world champion bodybuilder began training when he was 15.
Oh? You mean like O.J. Simpson? Kobe Bryant? Ray Carruth? Super Bowl MVP Ray Smith? (I think that's his name)
Ray Lewis of the Baltimore Ravens.
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