Free Republic

Terminator's crass humour backfires as candidates clash By Andrew Gumbel in Los Angeles 26 September 2003 He came. He spouted statistics. He let loose his one-liners. With less than two weeks to go before California's extraordinary gubernatorial recall election, a hitherto absent Arnold Schwarzenegger at last agreed to debate with his rivals in the race to succeed the unpopular Gray Davis. It didn't kill him, but it probably did him few favours. For 90 minutes, the action star was jumped on, savaged, patronised and, for long stretches, simply ignored. He may not have been demolished but the challenge proved a...