What gets me about this issue is that if Arnold had been a Democrat, the west side liberal women who are hollering would be creaming their jeans for him And the Conservative women who are defending him would be screaming bloody murder. Warren Beatty is one of Hollywood's most notorious womenizers, and they all dream of voting for him. Read the "K Street" story I posted about the Washington's Women's reaction to George Clooney.
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Actor's Female Fans Reject Groping Tales
Schwarzenegger Defended by Women
By Evelyn Nieves
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, October 6, 2003; Page A06
SACRAMENTO, Oct. 5 -- The "Remarkable Women for Arnold" came in all ages, from both major political parties and from no political party at all.
They lined up for the "Remarkable Women" signs that Arnold Schwarzenegger's campaign volunteers were giving out, bought "Total Recall" campaign buttons and "Terminator for Governor" T-shirts, and looked with disdain, even disgust, at the women at the edge of the rally carrying "No Groper for Governor" signs.
The women made up at least half of the supporters at Schwarzenegger's rally here today. And they defended him as a mother would against allegations that he groped women sexually despite his having admitted "behaving badly" on movie sets.
"What about Clinton?" said Ella Romano, who was decorated from her sun visor to her tennis shoes in "Join Arnold" stickers. The 60-year-old mother of three daughters and grandmother of one, an independent voter, did not want to hear any "trash stories from the filthy press about Arnold and sex." "Arnold wasn't president when he supposedly did those things that women said he did," she said. "And it's all old garbage against him, anyway."
President Bill Clinton's name, joined, inevitably, with that of Monica S. Lewinsky, was brought up often this weekend by the actor's female supporters as they discussed the women -- 15 of them, as of today -- who told the Los Angeles Times that Schwarzenegger had groped their breasts or buttocks or otherwise sexually humiliated them over the past 25 years. Also uttered often was the name of Gov. Gray Davis, whom Schwarzenegger's female supporters accused of planting stories in the newspaper, despite the newspaper report's outright denial that the Davis campaign had done so. The women also repeatedly used the words "lies," "exaggerations" and "long time ago."
If the allegations printed in the Los Angeles Times on Thursday after a seven-week investigation -- followed by other stories as more women have come forward -- have hurt the Republican front-runner's chances of becoming governor in Tuesday's recall election, you wouldn't know it from the vociferous support that women attending his rallies have demonstrated. Many are loyal Republicans who said they despise Davis and the Democrats more than anything. But others described themselves as swing voters, independents, even Democrats.
For his supporters, as a new San Jose Mercury News/KNTV/Knight-Ridder poll suggests, accounts of Schwarzenegger's sexual misdeeds seem to have little sway. Women polled support Davis's recall 51 percent to 42 percent, and they favor Schwarzenegger to replace him. He received 35 percent support among the women compared with 29 percent for his nearest rival, Democratic Lt. Gov. Cruz Bustamante.
If anything, women interviewed said, the sexual misconduct stories only made them angrier at Davis and Schwarzenegger's other opponents.
Lorraine Osborn, 49, a Sacramento computer engineer, felt that way, even though until this recall election, she was a lifelong Democrat -- "a really, really liberal Democrat at that."
"What changed my mind was all the tax increases," she said, "the tax on the car, and because we're so broke when we weren't broke before Davis."
As for the reports of Schwarzenegger's groping, inappropriate touching and language toward women, Osborn, like so many other Schwarzenegger supporters, shrugged her shoulders and rolled her eyes. And, like so many others, she questioned the timing of the report, so close to the election. She wondered, as others did, why the women had not come forward at the time they were supposedly groped. And she brought up a favorite antidote to the accounts of Schwarzenegger's boorishness: his wife, Maria Shriver.
"Maria Shriver is no pushover," she said. "Arnold's wife is not the kind of woman who would just sit back and let her husband behave that way." Shriver, part of the nation's most famous family of Democrats, joined Schwarzenegger during his bus rally from San Diego to Sacramento, attracting her own share of adoring fans and requests for autographs along the way. In Modesto on Saturday afternoon, three young women admired Shriver's prominent cheekbones and declared afterward that they needed to diet. "Then maybe I'll get someone like Arnold," said Tiffany Lopez, 21, who "definitely, definitely" planned to vote for Schwarzenegger -- her first vote, ever. The women issue? "Not an issue at all," she said. "I'd let him grope me any time!"
Other women said much the same. Or they said that they were sure the women who accused Schwarzenegger of molesting them had instigated the incidents. Osborn, the computer engineer, said that she had seen Schwarzenegger on two occasions in Orange County many years ago, when he was Mr. Universe and her ex-husband, a body builder, had taken her to competitions. "The women were all over him," she said. "He didn't care about them; they wanted him."
Robin Tamas, 35, a registered nurse in Pleasanton, where she attended a Saturday afternoon rally for Schwarzenegger, said that her experience with women has taught her that they often flirt with men and then accuse them of misbehaving. "The allegations don't sway me at all," said Tamas, a registered Republican. "I'm very pro-woman. But unfortunately, because I work with women, I know how silly they can act."
The accounts were news to Nancy Liang, 52, a commercial insurance broker in Sacramento. The lifelong Republican said that she had not had time to focus on the details of the recall election.
"It's been hard to figure it all out," she said. "This has been such a confusing, fast election. Now, we're almost at election day and we get this dirt. Look at what President Clinton did, and everybody still loves him." She paused a moment. "Arnold didn't kill anybody. We're in a financial crisis, and he sounds like he could fix it." And that, she said, was that.
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