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Posted on 10/06/2003 3:45:40 AM PDT by calcowgirl
THE LEADING REPUBLICAN
Challenging the Governor on His Own Lawn
SACRAMENTO, Oct. 5 — The Arnold Schwarzenegger bus tour made its final stop on Sunday, on the lawn of the state Capitol.
Addressing a crowd of 10,000, Mr. Schwarzenegger was upbeat and avoided comment on the headlines of recent days about women who said the actor had molested them or a book proposal that quoted him saying he admired Hitler. He did not refer to "yellow journalism" nor did any of his supporters here try to rally the crowd, as one did on Saturday, to beat up reporters.
On Sunday, Mr. Schwarzenegger drove the high road, invoking the name of Ronald Reagan and his old line about the shining city on the hill.
Still, Mr. Schwarzenegger did not totally escape discussion of the controversy.
In an interview with Tom Brokaw on the news program "Dateline NBC," shown Sunday night, Mr. Schwarzenegger was asked repeatedly about the accusations that he had made unsolicited advances toward women.
"Well, first of all, a lot of these are made up stories," Mr. Schwarzenegger said. "I never grabbed anyone. That I pulled up their shirt and grabbed their breasts and stuff like that: this is not me. So there's a lot of this stuff going on that is not true."
Asked if he planned to be more specific about the charges, Mr. Schwarzenegger replied, "As soon as the campaign is over I will.
"I can get into all of the specifics and find out what is really going on," he said. "But right now I'm just really occupied with the campaign."
As he has in recent days, he talked about dirty politics. "Especially if you become the front-runner, they're going to throw everything that you've done into the kitchen sink," he said.
Mr. Schwarzenegger, who is leading in the polls for the recall election to replace Gov. Gray Davis on Tuesday, has been accused by 15 women in recent days of groping or sexual harassment.
"There was an unusual amount of things about — you know, about women's stuff that I did not expect. It's really like they're coming out of nowhere, all those things.
"It's, you know, painful in many ways because I know a lot of the stuff is not true," he said.
Though some Democrats were game to make noise on Sunday, others were visibly glum. It says a lot when Mr. Schwarzenegger can draw more Davis supporters to his events than Mr. Davis can draw to his own.
The Democrats continued to bring up the recent campaign controversies. Bob Mulholland, campaign adviser to the state Democratic Party, was at the event on Sunday morning and even he had to admire the turnout. But not entirely:
"He doesn't draw as big a crowd as Hitler did," Mr. Mulholland said tartly.
And so it went, from beginning to end, on Mr. Schwarzenegger's California Comeback Express tour. No matter where he went, questions about his past were there to meet him. For most of the trip, Mr. Schwarzenegger was not asked about issues, but rather about his character.
For instance, not once on his trip through the San Joaquin Valley, the breadbasket of California, did Mr. Schwarzenegger mention the word "agriculture." Minute by minute, day by day, there was a new crisis. The first day started with an article in The Los Angeles Times, with charges by six women of unwanted sexual advances. Mr. Schwarzenegger apologized at his kickoff rally in San Diego. "Yes, it is true that I was on rowdy movie sets, and I have done things that were not right, which I thought then was playful," Mr. Schwarzenegger said.
He added: "I am sorry about that."
Later that day, Mr. Schwarzenegger had to deal with a book proposal that said that Mr. Schwarzenegger as a young bodybuilder had expressed admiration for Hitler.
"I always despised everything that Hitler stands for," he said. "I grew up with friends that were Jewish and with people that were of the Jewish religion. I didn't think they were Jewish, because they were all blended in."
At times, Maria Shriver was brought on stage to stand by her man. She laid a moist kiss on his lips in Fresno.
What a royal jerk.
Has there not been a movie or two about this man's probable progenitors?
Hitler? or Mulholland?
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