"On the Road Again." Well written story from "Newsweek"
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Arnold's Double Whammy
By Karen Breslau, Newsweek Web Exclusive
Arnold Schwarzenegger is known in Hollywood for having total control over any set he works on. But at the Thursday premiere of his flashy bus tour, the "California Comeback Express," unruly extras threatened to upset the plot line of his campaign finale.
INSTEAD OF DUTIFULLY REPORTING on the extravagant special effects and adoring crowds on day one of the candidate's triumphant 500-mile ride from San Diego to Sacramento, reporters were in a feeding frenzy from morning until night, once again over unsavory allegations from Schwarzenegger's past. The day began with a report in the Los Angeles Times containing graphic allegations by several unnamed women claiming they had been groped or sexually harassed by Schwarzenegger on movie sets and other Hollywood settings as recently as three years ago. By evening, the campaign was trying to defuse another piece of stray ordinance from Schwarzenegger's "Pumping Iron" days: that he had reportedly expressed admiration for Adolf Hitler in interviews that did not make it into the final cut of the documentary, but which were circulated in a 1997 book proposal by the film's director.
The twin controversies pushed Schwarzenegger into an uncharacteristically defensive mode on the eve of the Oct. 7 election, and threw the race, once again, into chaos. And while it won't be known until next Tuesday how voters will react, it's clear that Schwarzenegger has been knocked off stride in what was becoming a cocky strut to the finish line. At his kickoff rally in San Diego yesterday morning, Schwarzenegger tried to defuse the L.A. Times story with a quasi apology. He began by denouncing allegations in the article that he had grabbed women and made vulgar comments as "trash politics." But in the next breath, he changed course. "A lot of those you see in the stories is not true," Schwarzenegger began, his German-influenced syntax becoming more tangled as he went on. "But at the same time I always say wherever there is smoke there is fire. So what I want to say to you is yes, that I have behaved badly sometimes. Yes, it is true that I was on rowdy movie sets and I have done things that were not right that I thought then was playful, but now I recognize that I have offended people, and to those people I offended, I want to say to them, I am deeply sorry." As the forgiving crowd cheered, Arnold quickly reverted to the campaign script. He promised to be a "champion for the women" if elected governor and then growled "Let's start the engine."
With that, a curtain pulled back to reveal a giant blue bus, festooned with a 10-foot-high mural of Schwarzenegger's face on its side and the words CALIFORNIA COMEBACK EXPRESS. Schwarzenegger climbed aboard as confetti cannons fired and the official campaign anthem, Twisted Sister's "We're Not Gonna Take It," filled the convention hall. Thumbs up and grinning, Schwarzenegger stood on the stairs of the bus as it slowly circled the arena and placard-waving fans--many of them women--chased after him. With this crowd, at least, Arnold was home free. "I don't think his past should reflect on what he'll do to fix the state," said Karin Lang, a San Diego realtor who said Schwarzenegger's admission would not deter her from voting for him. Her friend, Antoinette Hamilton, agreed. "I think every man has a little part of that in him," she said. "So it's nothing that will change my vote."
For a campaign characterized by bravado and showmanship, Schwarzenegger's apology was a bold attempt at damage control. But it soon became clear aboard the lead press bus, aptly named Predator 1, that the reporters were out for blood. Which of the allegations were true and which weren't? Was Schwarzenegger sorry merely for "offending people" or for groping women against their will? What evidence did the campaign have for its assertion that operatives for Gov. Gray Davis had somehow planted the story days before the election? Surrounded by the pack, "minister of information" Todd Harris tried to cast Schwarzenegger's admission as a virtuous act. "Voters are going to see that when this issue came up he responded immediately and forthrightly," Harris said. "And voters can contrast that to anything in the way Gray Davis responds to problems." How, reporters demanded, could Schwarzenegger get credit for responding "immediately," given that only a day earlier, another of his spokesmen had denounced allegations of misbehavior toward women as "false and completely baseless?" And what about the infamous article in Premiere magazine containing remarkably similar accounts of boorish behavior that the actor's lawyers and supporters shot down when it appeared in 2001?
On and on it went during the two-hour ride to Costa Mesa, a bastion of support in heavily Republican Orange County. Hugh Hewitt, a popular conservative talk-radio host was warming up the crowd there. "Do we read the L.A. Times?" he bellowed.
"Noooo," the audience shouted in unison.
"Do you believe the L.A. Times?"
"Noooo" came the refrain.
"Would anyone in their right mind trust the L.A. Times?" he asks. A reporter for the paper rolls his eyes.
At 12:30, Schwarzenegger bounds on to the stage, appearing under a banner that reads HELLO ARNOLD! GOODBYE CAR TAX. Here in the heart of the California suburbs, the theme of the event is this much-loathed tax, which was recently tripled by the Davis administration in an attempt to cover the state's $8 billion deficit. Schwarzenegger starts rattling off the specific fee increases on vehicles he admits would never own: a Honda Civic, a Chevy Silverado, a Dodge Caravan. Each time he mentions the inflated price tag, the crowd roars.
Then Arnold cues up the second big stunt of the day. "I was 25 years in show business," he says, just in case anyone didn't know. "I always played a character if I didn't like something, I destroyed it, I wiped it out." The crowd is in a lather by now, as Schwarzenegger directs everyone to watch a giant crane which drops a 3,600 lb. wrecking ball, crushing a white Oldsmobile Sierra labeled DAVIS CAR TAX.
"Hasta la Vista, car tax!" Arnold bellows hoarsely as, once again, "We're Not Gonna Take It" is cranked up on the speakers. It would seem that everything was back on script, but then a small group of women, carrying signs such as NO GROPER FOR GOVERNOR and HEY ARNOLD, GROPE THIS --YOU LOSE began protesting. Soon, the pro-Arnold forces swarm around them like antibodies containing a virus. A middle-aged woman in pedal pushers starts screaming "ARNOLD!" and shoves her poster in the face of one protestor. A young man tries to separate two women who are arguing by sticking a giant skateboard between their faces. A man with spiky hair and a four-foot-long iguana perched on his shoulder watches the spectacle.
Just when it seems the scene could not possibly get weirder, one of the protestors tells a reporter that when she was 16, she too had a lewd encounter with Schwarzenegger. Soon, she is penned against a television satellite truck by a media mob demanding to hear the story. The woman, Gail Escobar, a waitress from Santa Monica who is now 41, says that in 1978, when she was a high-school student, she and a friend encountered Schwarzenegger and several of his buddies at a coffee shop. After Schwarzenegger left, says Escobar, one of his friends approached her and asked if she would like to meet him. When Escobar demurred, she claimed, the man dragged her "kicking and screaming" to Schwarzenegger's car. There, she says, Schwarzenegger, smiling broadly, said "We are going to rape you girls tonight."
Escobar acknowledged she had not registered an official complaint at the time of the alleged incident and that she had long lost contact with the friend who she says was present. As hecklers accused her of being paid and reporters asked why she was telling her story publicly for the first time, nervous Schwarzengger aides huddled on the edge of the scrum, trying to hear what was going on. Aboard Predator 1, as the convoy continued to San Bernadino, reporters debated whether to include the woman's uncorroborated claim in their stories of the day. The political power of these claims is already clear: the activist group MoveOn.org has announced it plans to air a television ad featuring women from the L.A. Times article. By the next stop, an elementary school where Arnold was to feature one of his afterschool programs, campaign operatives were denouncing Escobar as a "nut" who had been put up to her appearance by a labor union which had committed $2.5 million to oppose Schwarzenegger. "We finally have fingerprints from the Democrats for these crazy accusations," said Todd Harris.
Good pushback. But by this point, a new brushfire has erupted. "ABC World News Tonight" is reporting that Schwarzenegger had expressed admiration for Adolf Hitler in recently revealed outtakes from the documentary "Pumping Iron." The comments, which were not included in the film, were circulated in a 1997 book proposal by the film's director, George Butler. Asked to name his heroes, Butler claims, Schwarzenegger said, "It depends for what." According to a transcript of the interview, he continued, "I admired Hitler, for instance, because he came from being a little man with almost no formal education up to power. And I admire him for being such a good public speaker and for what he did with it."
This report, unlike the L.A. Times article, which had been percolating for weeks, catches the campaign by surprise. Schwarzenegger, aides announce, will respond to the allegations once he arrives at an evening fund-raiser in Los Angeles. That gives the campaign two hours to come up with an answer. Looking tense, Schwarzenegger faces reporters with wife Maria Shriver at his side shortly after 8 p.m. First, he repeats his apology to women. Then Maria, clearly angry, says that everyone she has spoken to "admired the way" in which Arnold had handled his apology. "I always tell my children it takes great courage to apologize." And Hitler? Schwarzenegger appears to stop short of a full denial." I don't remember any of those comments," he says. "From the time I was a kid on, I always despised everything that regime stood for." Then Maria takes a swipe at her husband's political opponents. "This is what disgusts people, both Democrats and Republicans." With that, Shriver stalked off trailed by the candidate, wishing, no doubt, that take two of the "California Comeback Express" would soon get back to the script.
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