Arnold ?ber Alles
LABASH, MATT
Arnold Uber Alles The wild, final days of the Schwarzenegger campaign. BY MATT LABASH San Diego, Calif. It seems like only yesterday that I was jetting around California with Arnold...
...Impressive as it is, however, Hollywood spectacle can't completely inoculate the campaign...
...Now, five days before the 2003 recall election, at the kickoff of his home-stretch bus tour at the San Diego Convention Center, it's apparent that Schwarzenegger has gone Hollywood...
...As I exit the conference room, I overhear one more thing: an Arnold staffer saying, "I want my mom...
...a staffer asks him...
...The bus does a racetrack pattern around the now stampeding crowd before taking off out the back of the arena...
...A reporter asks Harris what he thinks the headlines will be tomorrow...
...Tired of being too far away from the action, I put on the staff bracelet that a campaign aide slipped me...
...Simon says yes...
...Christina and Crystal's skirts are as short as their hair is platinum, though they've only come back to the bus to give Paul a haircut...
...But my mind, quite honestly, is on more important things...
...But it feels like something's missing: I have no one to share this spectacularly surreal moment with...
...In one corner, I hear a reporter relaying the day's events to his editor ("So then this chick says he threatened to rape her . . . "), while in another corner, TV people are making all kinds of Nazi talk...
...Harris even shares his best press-secretary-isms...
...There's plenty to work, since Arnold's turned out the crowds...
...So I call him in between press gaggles on new Arnold bimbo eruptions...
...Before Paul became a rich guy, he used to teach high school civics...
...On this night, however, Paul, who's single, and his crew, have some female companionship...
...I decide to hit him up anyway...
...a restaurant chain in which Arnold once owned an interest...
...A crane right next to the car crushes it with a wrecking ball...
...LeDuff, wearing a black leather motorcycle vest and tie, approaches former candidate Bill Simon, who's telling a television crew what a "good family guy" Arnold is...
...I approach an Arnold staffer, saying, "You guys dropped the ball— no Lepers or Hermaphrodites for Arnold...
...He was denied...
...The crowd titters, expecting him to let himself off the hook, possibly with one of his corny movie one-liners, like "Game Ov-ahhh" or "Milk is for babies...
...I'm an awards show junkie," he says...
...rolling cocktail party in which journalists engaged in back-slapping, glad-handing, and finally tearful goodbyes with the candidate...
...Harris sets about decrying "puke politics," saying that these "ridiculous allegations" bear "the first Democratic fingerprints of union involvement and the Democratic party...
...In "an ugly new low," Paul alleges, the California Highway Patrol diverted his bus when it came too close to Arnold's "Running Man...
...The way some of us figure, if Arnold can get on the trail and goose some Jewish women, they might not even need to have the election: Davis will be forced to con- cede...
...Simon nods in assent...
...LeDuff is by now in full mockumentary mode, keeping up a running commentary to whoever will listen: "I need to see that toilet, I'm on east coast deadline...
...LeDuff asks Simon...
...Forgive the sinner, but not the sin...
...It leaves me with steely resolve to get off this bus and make it onto Sexual Predator 1. At the next stop, the Orange County Fairgrounds, it's a homer conservative crowd...
...The New York Times," they reply, "that's Charlie LeDuff...
...LeDuff, who has taken to alternating his bike-messenger wear with crisp jackets and khakis to look more like Arnold's security guys ("I'm making it to the front line," he says giddily), comes and collects me...
...What motorcycle magazine does he write for...
...Outside the building, Christian schoolgirls who say they're slightly troubled that Arnold is "pro-abortion," still squeal like he's the lost Backstreet Boy and wear proArnold bumper stickers on the perky derrieres of their jeans (not a visual the campaign desires today...
...Here is a typical exchange between a reporter and Stutzman, after we've watched Stutzman escort the Modesto mystery woman to her sister's car, then watched Stutzman get in a car himself and speed away: Reporter: Describe what it was like getting in her sister's car...
...Keeping one eye on Arnold, the other on Paul, I run into him again sitting on his bus at a Schwarzenegger rally in Modesto...
...Paul first stops by the fringe candidates' microphone stand (over 100 candidates, plus the write-ins, are supposed to share it), but there's no crowd around...
...As Arnold stumps, Schwartz gets a cool reception...
...He also likes to read obituaries...
...It doesn't help Arnold that his father was a Nazi, or that the New York Times simultaneously reported that Butler claimed in the proposal that he played "Nazi marching songs, . . . frequently clicked his heels and pretended to be an SS officer...
...But just as it's getting underway, he demurs...
...But instead, he goes earnest, saying that on movie sets, he may have done things that he thought then were "playful," but that "now I recognize that I offended people...
...Like others I meet who have real jobs as structural engineers or hazardous waste removal experts, Paul is just a guy with a dream—someone who wants to live outside himself, to in a sense live Arnold's life...
...In light of the new allegations, we call them "Sexual Predator 1-4...
...Paul has spent nearly $50,000 of his own money to keep this crew on the road, and he's not even officially on the ballot...
...In such close proximity to all the Shrivers, my teeth feel smaller and my hair thinner...
...A telecommunications millionaire by the time he was 30, he took 11 years off to see the world, then got back to work as a spa owner in Escondido...
...I ask one colleague...
...As I set out to meet Paul on the morning of the mega-rally (it's nice to have access to some candidate), I make my way through our hotel lobby, where a National Federation of the Blind conference is adjourning...
...Every conservative who spent the '90s playing moral scold, saying that behavior reveals character and that character counts, maintains that Arnold is a victim of dirty tricks and liberal media bias, and ignores charges for which he's apologized...
...I'm initially assigned to Bus 2, which in the social pecking order ranks behind Bus 1 (TV anchors, big-circulation print reporters, favored California press) and ahead of Buses 3 and 4 (technical people and leftover foreign press, respectively...
...A new woman has materialized, claiming that back in 1978 one of Arnold's friends picked her up and pinned her against a wall, while Arnold yelled from his vehicle that he was going to rape her, after which she managed to run away...
...Lip-synch," Stutzman nods...
...And this, it turns out, is a devastatingly effective strategy for two reasons: (a) Voters hate the media, and (b) if there's anything Californians hate more than the media, it's Gray Davis...
...Small people of color are everywhere, eager to meet the action star...
...Stutzman eyes the stage with Dee Snider singing Arnold's theme song, "We're not gonna take it" (a song we've heard so many times that LeDuff now sings "We can't f—ing take it...
...Schwartz holds a visually complicated magic-marker sign that says "GOP OUI"—that last bit being a reference to an ancient Oui magazine article in which Arnold explained his dabbling in group sex...
...It doesn't dampen his laconic good humor...
...But he seems to have taken to the sport...
...But I'm stopped by Skip, Arnold's bus driver, who spies the Paul Walton/ Arnold lammie that I've taken to wearing out of solidarity with Walton's lost cause...
...They are affiliated with a union that has vowed to defeat the recall...
...Let's have a hand for ze man vith ze good idea...
...I see it as a two-man race," he says guilelessly, "That's why I took out my picture with Schwarzenegger...
...Kind of reminds you of voters," says one colleague...
...Another time, in front of the press corps, LeDuff jabs a recorder in Mike Murphy's face and asks, "If Arnold is elected governor, do you vow right now that he will not grope women...
...Arianna Impressionist-In-Chief Patrick Dorinson is viewing the night through the eyes of the Greek socialite and erstwhile gubernatorial candidate: "Vell, I think it's a lovely affair, there's just so many people in favor of the recall...
...on the record—'no.'" He also provides complimentary air-sickness bags inscribed with a Ghostbuster crossbar through the word "puke politics...
...That's such a good idea...
...Once, at a Sacramento bar, he shakes up all the media/staffer chumminess by breaking an empty wine glass on his forehead...
...Following Arnold all over the state, he'd planned to challenge him to a debate...
...Arnold immediately went on World News Tonight to say he remembered none of this, and that he despised Hitler...
...There's beer on every bus and it should be cold," he loudly announces...
...Like almost every alternative candidate I meet in this race, Paul is not a traditional freak...
...His official campaign press badges, which he distributes liberally, are a photo of him and Arnold shoulder to shoulder in tuxedos...
...Goddamn it," he says...
...Paul is amped like I've never seen him amped, and he's brought company—a woman named Janet who identifies herself as "Paul's lover when he's in San Diego...
...Todd Harris sits at a table drinking a light beer, jokingly recounting the path to victory: "It takes a confluence of incredible political skills, brilliant strategy, and pedestrian reporting...
...he says...
...The reporter on our bus begins banging on the window with both hands, yelling back at them exultantly, "I'M THE MEDIA...
...I tell him I'm right-handed...
...He gives his title alternately as "Minister of Truth and Enlightenment" and "First Piece of Meat...
...Schwarzenegger takes the stage to raucous applause...
...The Los Angeles Times kicks things off with a morning story in which six different women allege Arnold's non-consensual touching...
...I used to be with [former candidate] Bill Simon...
...But by the time we get to our hotel in Los Angeles, ABC is moving news that a book proposal by Pumping Iron director George Butler has Arnold saying in a 1975 interview that he had admiration for Hitler as a public speaker...
...Times/Gray Davis nexus...
...Conservative...
...In fact, it was a year ago, when Arnold was campaigning for his ballot initiative promoting after-school activities...
...I'm just the luggage lady," she says...
...Schwartz is convinced he's drawing extra heat because "Oui" is French, and this is a freedom-fries-eating crowd...
...I'll make my stand in Pleasanton," he promises...
...I want to hug her, and not just because she's hot and wearing a sarong...
...Arboretum, Rob Stutzman tells us that their campaign has actually jumped a point or two in the polls, despite the allegations...
...The next day, at the L.A...
...To them, he says, "I'm deeply sorry about dat, and I apologize...
...The morning sees charges that Schwarzenegger is an ass-grabbing lout...
...I take a seat next to some Japanese TV people, who do their best to communicate with me in Godzilla-movie English...
...Woo-hoo...
...It's like catching the crest of the next wave, and you never know if it's going to take you all the way to shore, or if you're gonna come crashing down in the Banzai pipeline, losing life and limb...
...Then stand on this side of me," he says, aligning us shoulder to shoulder as we face the blinding lights of the camera crews using the stage for their nightly news backdrop...
...We receive regular updates from the New York Post's David Li who keeps us plugged into the latest Siegfried and Roy/white-tiger-mauling developments...
...he says, "They're going to let the foreign press look at Arnold's empty bus...
...Then Arnold's tour bus, which looks like it was spray-painted by Leni Riefenstahl, as the entire side bears Arnold's oversized Aryan mug looking off beat-ifically into the middle distance, drives up behind the stage...
...Murphy feigns choking...
...Let the battle begin...
...As we wait, someone asks Harris what was served at the fundraiser...
...Our "bus captain," Patrick Dorinson, a former flack for a failing energy company, does a flawless Arianna Huffington impression, which he regularly treats us to over the PA system: "Oooo, sir...
...Do you think it's made of gold...
...I hope dat dey will give me the chance to prove dat...
...Gray Davis has terminated opportunities...
...I can't tell if the sinewy, leathered scribe with bandito facial hair is a former outlaw biker or a former pirate, since he looks like the bastard spawn of Sonny Barger and Jean Lafitte...
...So many incidents had now been alleged that reporters forgot the entire point of the pool—to ask Arnold about Hitler—so Rob Stutzman, Arnold's own staffer, had to ask him what he thought of the Führer...
...So how is "snatching women" a family value...
...Reporter: Whose car was it and can you describe what it was like...
...The men who must deal with our queries, the conservative versions of War Room-era James Carville and George Stephanopou-los, are Arnold spokesmen Rob Stutzman and Todd Harris...
...Former NFL player and star of the '80s detective show Hunter Fred Dryer comes off the VIP bus to warm up the kids by taking questions about Arnold...
...The backdrop banner has prints of all their little hands, with an inscription thanking "Mr...
...Today in Arnold World is one of those days...
...The Arnold supporters of course outnumber the Arnold detractors about 250 to 1. There are Ranchers for Arnold and Farmers for Arnold, Bikers for Arnold and Immigrants for Arnold...
...Throughout the bus tour, Charlie keeps people honest...
...The campaign does everything, in fact, but blame Gray Davis for reading the Los Angeles Times...
...On the far end of the parking lot, a media feeding frenzy is underway...
...I listen to Arnold thank his fahn-tas-teek wife, and watch them sweep into the wings, to endure another grueling interview with Access Hollywood...
...If he had the resources to poll this race, he'd be at zero percent and dropping like a rock...
...He's a Democrat who's come to torment Arnold over the allegations, though even he admits he probably couldn't stomach voting for Gray Davis again...
...I start with a woman standing by a velvet rope, behind which sit 200 journalists' suitcases...
...After 40 minutes in line, it is my turn to walk the empty bus with a BBC camerawoman...
...When reporters fall back on the morning paper's allegation, which Arnold has not categorically denied and in some ways has admitted, Harris insists that his boss is taking responsibility for what he's done, "in sharp contrast to the way Gray Davis has handled the budget crisis, the energy crisis, and the special-interest crisis...
...He is holding court and mixing margaritas in a campaign bus as big as Arnold's...
...Now, I'm quite prepared to believe that despite his good qualities, he's additionally a big creep, to borrow a coinage...
...Except it serves as a Rorschach test...
...But to Hollywood stunt guys, blowing up a car is like going to McDonald's," says Murphy...
...And he delivers the money lines of others: "We are mad as hell and we're not going to take it anymore...
...No sandwich boards, no fright wigs, no boring pamphlets about Mumia...
...Conservative," says LeDuff, again pointing to himself...
...Schwartz is struck dumb...
...Certainly," he says...
...He points to an empty parking lot near the crowd, where a lonely Oldsmobile sits, inscribed with the words "Car Tax...
...I'm ready to head back to press quarters at the bar, but Paul's not quite set to go...
...The next stop, at Riley Elementary School in San Bernardino, gives them a chance to put their plan into action...
...Whatever...
...But the bus's MVP has to be the reporter I spy when we cruise into Bakersfield...
...Now it is time that we terminate him...
...Even at his age (56), his face and body look chiseled from sheet-rock, never mind that the hair and overly taut skin are a tint not found in nature, the color of an apricot Fruit Roll-up...
...I had a little bit more to do today than to worry about whether they served chicken or steak," he replies...
...Stutzman: I didn't get in her sister's car...
...None," he says, "it's just fun...
...Since it is fairly clear early on that access to Arnold will be next to nil, journalists interview other journalists from foreign countries...
...Then the mercury rises in his face, as he works up a full head of steam about the L.A...
...Throughout the hall, a flood of visually impaired types are bumping into furniture while probing with their sticks...
...An Asahi TV producer tells me Arnold is big in Japan, where he does Cup O' Noodles soup and energy-drink commercials...
...Staffers and reporters crowd into a conference room to get the play-by-play from Joe Matthews of the LA...
...He is rumpled and bleary-eyed, with cheese-grater growth and the thousand-yard stare of a campaign aide who has suffered too many box lunches...
...I try to light a fire under him by telling him he needs to start working voters...
...Back then, he was running a modest little jobs program for former Pete Wilson aides...
...It's one of his friends relating the unspeakable acts he's performed on Schwarzenegger...
...You're not getting on the bus...
...He doesn't want to be seen "as some eccentric with a bullhorn...
...But the outfit for which he draws resounding cheers comes when he rolls a pair of pants up to his knees, then parades around as if it's normal...
...There's director Ivan Reitman and comedian Jay Leno and actor Rob Lowe and professional nutjob Gary Busey...
...He knows he stands an outside chance of catching Arnold with just a few days remaining, and he doesn't really have much of a platform to speak of, beside spending less on incarceration and more on education (a line that comes in handy when I later watch him try to pick up a girl whose boyfriend is in jail for drunk driving...
...Christina, or maybe it was Crystal, works at "The Cutting Edge" in Bakersfield, and I compliment her on her handiwork...
...Paul is 47 years old, favors expensive double-breasted suits bought at a discount in Bogota, and has the white-bread looks and lulling speech of a midnight-shift, easy-listening DJ...
...Then there are his fashion choices: bandannas, shorts, and a rival New York Post cut-off baseball shirt...
...The charges involve several breast-grabs, a hand-under-the-skirt buttock clinch, an elevator groping, a simulated sex act, and several mature-language propositions too clinical to replicate here...
...If elected, "I will be a champion for da women...
...It's a trick," he tells me later, "the glass is thin up at the top...
...Bus 4, Gluck tells me, "is like that room in Animal House" where all the uncool kids kept getting steered...
...It's in this latter capacity that he is interesting to the press...
...He is slowly transformed from a 35-year-old California political consultant into a professional wrestler who's gotten an unfair call and who's about to send the pencil-necked referee careening into the turnbuckle...
...I'm going to get the bald-spot burn...
...Today, with Stutzman's help, I will leave behind the Japanese lap-dancer on Bus 2, and I will make it all the way to Sexual Predator 1. As I suspected, life is better on Bus 1. Snacks taste fresher, beer is colder...
...We can talk our way on...
...That night, at the Century Plaza Hotel, the polls have not yet closed, but the celebration is already on...
...No," says one child, of the Austrian actor, "he can't run for president, he's from Canada...
...But Paul is more overt about it...
...Reporters take off after him, hurriedly mounting our buses...
...Not wishing to see him cause himself any further financial harm, I tell him he ought to think about dropping out, since the only way he can score Arnold's name recognition is to shoot somebody famous, possibly Arnold...
...They said, 'What kind of car?' and 'Do you want anybody in it when it blows up?'" Murphy determined an explosion posed too many safety risks, and "though it broke my heart," he settled for the wrecking ball...
...By evening, he'll stand accused of loving Adolf Hitler...
...Immediately, they go into debunk mode, and in this case, it's relatively easy, since the woman showed up with a bunch of other women in matching "Working Women Vote" T-shirts...
...It smelled like McDonald's...
...It had been wadded up and thrown in the trash, but he got it out, and it "felt wonderful to finally see my name in print, even if it was on a crinkled piece of paper...
...When I complain yet again about lack of access, Murphy explains it thus: "You can't be the chef at Nobu, which in the magazine business is what you guys want to be...
...Let me show you exactly what we are going to do to de car tax when we get to Sacramento," says Arnold...
...It makes us all feel like extras in some sort of Turkish prison movie...
...Behind the press risers, feminist groups and pro-lifers join forces against Schwarzenegger, proving that he's a uniter, not a divider...
...It's guys like Charlie that keep Team Arnold rightly reticent to open up to pack questioning, or to give us print guys much chance to slice and dice and weigh Arnold's every word and gesture...
...asks LeDuff...
...C'mon...
...Todd Harris, 32, is the second-highest-ranking member of the Murphy Mafia (behind Murphy...
...An elderly Vietnamese albino in a flowing ceremonial robe walks around pumping a pro-Arnold sign but speaks no English...
...All the buses on the tour are named after Arnold movies...
...That's what it's all about, I'm really enjoying this," he says, beaming...
...The campaign will try out any number of combinations: Blame the Los Angeles Times for opening a can of worms too close to the election, blame Gray Davis for unleashing his Democratic henchmen who doubtless supplied the tips to the Los Angeles Times (this is never proven), blame the Times for not spending enough time blaming Gray Davis (they never, for instance, gave wide play to the New Times's charges that temper-tantrum-throwing Davis physically attacks members of his own staff, women included...
...Charlie points at Simon and asks, "Catholic...
...I stand in the hot lights, alongside Arnold and Maria and their supporters...
...It's insane, but apparently true...
...I tell my waitress, Mashia, that I should be working the polls, but I've had it with real people...
...They both do their work brilliantly, and if I ever run for office and get accused of being an ass-grabbing Nazi in the final stretch of a campaign, I will hire them without blinking...
...It's a bad call...
...The same can't be said of the big kids on the press bus...
...I use it to get all the way up on stage during Arnold's acceptance speech, just to prove to myself that I still can...
...There's a saying in our church that goes like this," says Simon...
...Gluck is part of a small but all-powerful clique within the campaign known as the "Murphy Mafia...
...He is overjoyed to see me: "We are unstoppable...
...I've changed my mind again...
...But then he admits that it is true he has "behaved badly" sometimes...
...Catholic," says LeDuff, pointing to himself...
...But there is one sound that stands out above all others: the sound of irony being lost on people...
...He had to find his own way in through a service elevator...
...Now, Murphy has launched what will be nicknamed the No Talk Express—in which he invites hundreds of access-starved journos along for the ride, then essentially tells them to buzz off...
...It's a reference to their leader, Mike Murphy, the evil genius behind John McCain's presidential bid...
...Then he learned the ugly truth...
...He delivers his money lines: "Gray Davis has terminated jobs...
...He knows the hotel like the back of his hand, he tells me—he comes here for awards shows—and he slipped in with Dar-rell Issa, the congressman and publicity tapeworm/father-of-the-recall...
...Like most good reporters, he inspires sources to perform for him because they like him, but also because he keeps them off balance...
...It's a remarkable moment, even by the standards of the Remarkable Women for Arnold...
...Paul says...
...The Hollywood agenda is just different than what we're used to...
...The crowd nearly keels over from excitement...
...It seems like only yesterday that I was jetting around California with Arnold Schwarzenegger, enjoying one-on-one access, eating Arnold's food, laughing at Arnold's jokes, choking on Arnold's cigar smoke...
...That's okay," she says, "there's not many of them left out here...
...While I miss Patrick, the Arianna impersonator, Stutzman and Harris keep up a constant patter, spinning us silly...
...I have better luck with Rob Gluck, a Troy Aikman doppelganger who describes Schwarzenegger's warp-speed, two-month campaign for governor of California as having to "lay track full speed ahead as fast as we can, trying to get to the Pacific before the train does...
...She says she hasn't and she's not going to, because she doesn't really know the issues, and she doesn't think ignorant people should vote...
...Two by two, reporters are shepherded through...
...It's hard work, living history, as Paul finds out in the next few days...
...I pile on, asking Simon if he felt the same way about Clinton...
...Every protesting lefty I encounter at the rally, who spent the entire '90s hibernating while the likes of Juanita Broad-drick and Kathleen Willey alleged that Bill Clinton had groped them and worse, thinks Arnold is a beast...
...A large black man runs down the street claiming he's been groped by Arnold...
...It's not a dumb strategy, considering the circumstances...
...I better take this privately," says Charlie...
...Three years ago, Murphy launched McCain's Straight Talk Express, the Matt Labash is senior writer at THE WEEKLY STANDARD...
...I spend election morning covering the race poolside at the Mondrian Hotel in Los Angeles...
...Stutzman is surveying the campaign staff's magnificent handiwork, but he doesn't seem to enjoy it...
...With a general apology, he has tacitly admitted specifics, meaning that Topic A for the rest of the election won't be the economy, or offshore drilling, or other things we couldn't care less about...
...But like every other candidate, Paul is an optimist...
...And our Quiznos sandwiches are getting cold...
...At first, I thought they were giving me a police escort to the Fairgrounds," he says naively...
...Great news," says David, "Roy lives...
...His antics are not only a news-gathering method, but a performance-commentary on the whole preposterous kabuki dance...
...But still, the freaks are out in force at presidential-campaign levels of weirdness...
...So he subtly mocks them back...
...He couldn't even get in...
...Reporters wishing to talk to them must reach over a tall chain-link fence to shake their hands or receive their literature...
...But the campaign knows we won't be sated, so at the hotel, they arrange a conference call for us with a pool reporter who attended a fundraiser where reporters were allowed to ask a few brief questions of Schwarzenegger...
...Mike Murphy tells me that when he initially talked to Arnold's pyro people about the stunt, the campaign advance guys thought it was "the scariest thing in the world...
...Before becoming a journalist at around the age of 30, he did stints as a teacher, a tannery worker, and a bartender...
...I settle on the former...
...That's an analogous sense of how I'm living my life...
...The busload of perpetually trailing alternative candidates, who've attempted to crash the scene in order to generate publicity for their own boutique issues like limiting population growth and getting junk food out of public schools, have been cleared from the premises...
...A crowd, mistaking us for Arnold's bus, greets us with the kind of enthusiasm Jesus would get if He were touring with the reunited Beatles...
...For this reason, we are forced to work out extra hard on Arnold's punching bags, Todd Harris and Rob Stutz-man, with often ridiculous results...
...I ask her who she voted for...
...I ask what the purpose of the latter is...
...By the time he gets to Sacramento for Arnold's big-finish bus tour rally on the statehouse steps, he is hopping mad, pushing press releases about the incident to reporters, who mostly push them back...
...When one befuddled woman reads his sign, Schwartz says, "It's French and subliminal...
...You got to do something while you're in an elevator...
...Frequently, he flies all over the world to worm his way into important events such as the fall of the Berlin Wall or a peace summit in Jackson Hole...
...So he decides to go campaign in the maw of Arnold madness...
...His three "security guys"—Dan, Achilles, and Andre—are all former military, and Andre used to bodyguard for MC Hammer...
...As the arena is filled with his theme song, Twisted Sister's "We're Not Gonna Take It," Arnold boards the bus, hangs out the door, and shoots thumbs-up to everyone...
...The bag contains a foam rubber Sacramento capitol dome and a tin of a substance called "grip goo...
...Times...
...Why did you do that...
...Our unofficial DJ is Adam Housley from Fox, a rangy former college baseball player who's secure enough in his masculinity to spin ABBA CDs on his laptop without buckling to ridicule...
...In Pleasanton, I never see him...
...And that's when I bump into Paul Walton...
...The back of his bus is emblazoned with "We're kicking ass," even though he's not...
...Off the record—'yes...
...Middle-life sucks...
...Here we go, listen," he says urgently, putting his cell phone on speaker...
...There are so many staffers on the ground that it's hard to know who to suck up to...
...But critical thinking isn't in evidence at the convention center during Schwarzenegger's final-swing kickoff rally...
...Stutzman: I got into a car with a staffer who drove me to Pleasanton...
...It's a bunch of hooey...
...It was taken at one of the awards shows he weasels his way into...
...I just want to look at it...
...YOU LOVE THE MEDIA...
...It's loud as all get-out: the percussive Asian drums, the Chinese paper dragon snaking through the audience, the stylings of "Twisted Sist-ahhhh," as Arnold calls them...
...Harris dazzles media with impromptu press conferences," he deadpans...
...But we get the last laugh...
...He concludes the speech with his signature "I'll be back," which makes little sense in this context but pleases the crowd anyway...
...He then asks Janet to throw some fallen confetti on us, just for the full effect...
...He dives into my lap, barking orders in Japanese which are muffled in my crotch...
...When I point out that Schwarzenegger won't even debate Davis, he responds that Arnold might think he'd lose to Davis, "but maybe he'll think he'll win against me...
...But then Schwartz gets upstaged by the big finish...
...When I charge into a cluster of stageside Arnold supporters, some of whom are holding "Remarkable Women Join Arnold" signs, and ask them about the charges, they are uniformly dismissive: "It's just the usual dirt they dredge up before an election...
...To journalists, it's waving the red cape...
...I fall in with Alan Schwartz, an audio-visual technician in a Triumph motorcycle jacket...
...A mystery woman turns up in Modesto, making vague claims against Arnold, before she is rushed off to a car by a campaign staffer...
...Matthews relays both important and ancillary details: Arnold's wife Maria Shriver's expression was "businesslike" while Arnold's was "subdued," "Kenny G walked by," a security guard slammed Matthews's arm in the door, Arnold reported that he'd "misbehaved" and that he didn't "have memory" of many of the alleged incidents...
...Matt," he asks, "are you right-handed or left-handed...
...Whether or not her story is true (the campaign denies this one categorically) we don't have time to tell...
...A very long day is winding down...
...Okay, this one's my favorite," he says...
...We all write down her license plate, and LeDuff indicates he's having the plates traced...
...How much more exciting to actually live history and be a part of it," he says...
...Part Native-American, part Cajun, LeDuff won a Pulitzer after spending a month in a North Carolina slaughterhouse...
...There are some days in the campaign business when it would be easiest for an aide to wake up, put on her best dress, then step in front of a bus...
...Paul is not unlike most of the suckerfish on the Arnold tour (the campaign hacks, the press hacks, the other freak candidates) who are trying to get over on Arnold's publicity...
...I always despised everything Hitler stood for," said Arnold...
...It is a strategy they will employ with nearly every allegation (15 women will come forward in all...
...as I'm walking through the parking lot of my Fresno hotel...
...To some people, it sounds morbid," he says...
...Yeah, she says, catching on, "it means, 'You're a jackass.'" As Arnold crescendos, telling the crowd how much more they are paying in car taxes for each specific make and model, Schwartz winces, yelling, "How much is a burger at Planet Hollywood...
...And we do...
...It looks kind of boufy," she says modestly...
...Of the morning papers, he says that "the people of Cal-eee-for-nee-ah can see through this trash politics...
...These charges, and some that follow them, are enough to convince me—someone who likes Arnold, thinks he's utterly charming, deceptively smart, and a charismatic leader—to rethink my drink...
...I find mine in Paul Walton, write-in candidate for governor of California...
...I take in all the sights: the belching confetti cannons, the balloon drops, the stripper who hops up on stage and gets down to her thong before security practically dive-tackles her...
...But he decided long ago that it was too boring...
...Paul likes to read his USA Today—"my Bible"—to find out what's happening not just today, but also tomorrow...
...He sounds all his usual campaign themes about rescinding the car tax, reforming workers' compensation...
...No," he says, but we have those, pointing to a sign that says "Iranian American Republican Council For Arnold...
...As one colleague puts it, "Any day spent on the trail talking about Adolf Hitler is not a good day...
...You just shot yourself in the foot," Skip says...
...Stutzman wears white "Join Arnold" golf shirts and is witty, convivial, and downright jolly except when we confront him with new allegations...
...The buses are leaving...
...The journos themselves are a lively crew...
...Foreign reporters, the campaign constantly reminds us, won't get Arnold any votes in California...
...I feel ridiculous, but not much more than I have all week...
...Because of all the bull— I got to wade around in here," he replies...
...It trivializes any problem you have, including possibly losing for governor...
...His own tricked-out coach is "The Running Man," while his slightly less elaborate VIP bus is "Total Recall" (get it...
...It's part of the intended effect...
...For a Sunday morning political rally, it's quite the spectacle...
...They ask if he's married, did he really play The Terminator, what time is this going to be over, and can he run for president...
...Tell me something inside," I say...
...Arnold supporters yell at him to take down his sign, to "sit on it," and tell him his "penmanship sucks...
...In a strange way, the new allegations are a good break for the campaign...
...The kids love Arnold and Arnold loves the kids, and the staff loves Arnold with the kids because kids don't ask questions about women showing up in parking lots claiming that Arnold threatened to rape them...
...It allows them to perfect their elegantly simple defense strategy: Whatever happens, blame Gray Davis or the Los Angeles Times...
...I ask how he even got in, let alone all the way up to the stage, without the proper bracelet...
...To Arnold supporters, it's a heartfelt apology, a tidy way to put an end to something ugly before it begins...
...While we encircle him on the Riley Elementary playground, we ask him exactly zero questions about Arnold's after-school programs...
...A few minutes later, on the bus, he acts like he has news when he receives a call...
...While four of the six remain unnamed, and none has filed legal action, the Times claims that even if their story smells like a ninth-inning political black-bag job, none of Schwarzenegger's opponents helped the paper find the women...
...The piranhas are circling and Harris is the chum bag, but he knows how to end a press conference...
...As we labor to get the details, Schwarzenegger staffers yell that "the buses are leaving...
...If you can't win, at least you can feel like a winner...
...But one gets the feeling Paul is in it for the pure sense of adventure...
...Because of the near total lack of access to the candidate—unless you're Tom Brokaw or Entertainment Tonight—reporters are forced to find their own entertainment...
...When my seatmate's colleague starts interviewing the French documentary crew in front of me, the producer feels compelled to quickly get his face out of the shot...
...He tells me that at the polls that morning, he found his name on the write-in list...
...He says they call him "Schwa-Chan," which loosely translates as "childish boy...
...It makes me happier that I'm alive...
...One British crew actually shut themselves into his bathroom and report, "This is where Arnold takes his 'Terminator 2's...
...My bus is initially acceptable...
...The school provides the ideal, scripted setting...
...It doesn't matter where in the world, we're there...
...When he shows me the 12 bunks in his fully outfitted bus, he says, "If these bunks could talk, they'd have said a lot more when REM was here...
...But for me, it's an uplifting thing to actually read that someone didn't make it through the day...
...His bus driver, who pilots his "home on wheels," used to drive for REM...
...I stumble upon him one night at 1 a.m...
...Schwarzenegger" for promoting after-school programs...
...I'm a hanger-on...
...Paul is shy, but he takes my advice and heads down to the rally...
...One, two, three," he counts, "We're gonna wave...
...I'm going to put that idea in my new constitution...
...The wags in Arnold's press shop titled the media buses "Predator 1-4...
...Between the "G" and the first "O," Schwartz inserted a small "R," and after the "P" he added a small "E"—making it "GrOPe" to the eagle-eyed...
...A man with two gold teeth in an otherwise toothless mouth stalks the grounds yelling "Free Tommy Chong...
Vol. 9 • October 2003 • No. 6
