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Dozens qualify for California recall ballotList includes professional politicians, celebrities, pundits
LOS ANGELES, California (CNN) -- A Hollywood action hero, a porn publisher and a handful of politicians walk into a courthouse. No, it's not the start of a joke. It's the official beginning of California's recall election. More than 150 potential governors met the deadline to file paperwork and pay a $3,500 filing fee to qualify for California's October 7 recall election, according to the state's secretary of state. Candidates needed to provide the signatures of 65 registered voters. As of 12:20 a.m. PT (3:20 a.m. ET) Sunday, the elections officials had completed reviews of the paperwork of 55 candidates and were still reviewing 100 others. The secretary of state has until Wednesday to issue a certified list of qualified candidates for the race to replace Gov. Gray Davis -- part two of the ballot that begins with the yes or no question on recalling Davis. (Gallery: The recall and candidates) Once the list is complete, the focus will shift from questions about who might be on the ballot October 7 to how those candidates might get attention and stand apart from the crowd. Davis, the embattled governor, isn't giving up. He said in an interview Saturday on CNN that has asked former President Bill Clinton to help him retain his position. Davis said he's "a fighter, not a quitter" and he expects to be in the governor's office October 8. (Full story) Earlier in the day, actor Arnold Schwarzenegger was met by cheering crowds outside the Los Angeles County Registrar's Office, where he filed to enter the recall gubernatorial election. Hundreds of fans and reporters had waited for hours to spot Schwarzenegger. Television pundit and syndicated columnist Arianna Huffington, who is running as an independent, was also there, and greeted him and his wife, Maria Shriver, with friendly hugs. The race --- dubbed a "carnival" by Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein -- has drawn a host of characters, including Hustler magazine publisher Larry Flynt, Lt. Gov. Cruz Bustamante and former sitcom star Gary Coleman. Feinstein has said she will not enter the race. Peter Ueberroth, the former commissioner of Major League Baseball and Time's 1984 "Man of the Year," announced Friday evening in a statement that he will be a candidate in the recall election. Although he is a registered Republican, he will run as an independent stressing bipartisanship. Bustamante's decision to enter the race was also a blow for Davis, who had hoped for a show of Democratic unity to help defeat the recall election. Another Democrat, Insurance Commissioner John Garamendi, had said he would run as well but announced two hours before the filing deadline that he would not be a candidate. Among all the players, it's Schwarzenegger that has dominated the political coverage since his announcement Wednesday. The attention continued on filing day. "When I came here in 1968 from Austria as an immigrant, it's the last thing I thought, that one day 35 years later I would be standing here filing the papers to run for governor of the great state of California," Schwarzenegger said when he emerged from the county offices. His wife has taken a leave of absence from her job as an NBC correspondent for the duration of the campaign. She spoke publicly for the first time about her husband's campaign. Shriver, daughter of Sen. Ted Kennedy's sister Eunice and Sargent Shriver, said she was "100 percent in his corner." Calling Schwarzenegger "a born leader," Shriver said he is a "serious, compassionate, smart, calm, compassionate man [who] will represent Democrats, independents and Republicans, men and women all across the state." The Republican candidate thanked his supporters, saying he was "humbled" and "encouraged" by their "great enthusiasm," but he refused to answer questions about the issues facing the state he wants to run, saying he would release position papers during the course of the campaign. (Full story) "I'm running for governor, and I promise you that I will be the people's governor," he said. "I will be there for everyone, young or old, man or woman, it doesn't make any difference who it is." Huffington preceded Schwarzenegger out of the building. "We are the two outsiders running against the professional politicians, but the similarity ends there, " she said, noting Schwarzenegger's arrival in a "gas-guzzling SUV" and her own arrival in a hybrid Toyota that gets 52 mpg. Huffington is a co-founder of Americans for Fuel Efficient Cars, a nonprofit group that aims to persuade U.S. automakers to build vehicles that use less fuel. The group came under fire in January when it began running a series of ads that linked driving SUVs to supporting terrorism. She told reporters she was a populist and pledged to spend less than $10 million on the campaign. She also said she would not rule out raising taxes to cover some of the state's $38 billion deficit. Simon, who lost to Davis, also in raceShortly after Huffington and Schwarzenegger left, Republican Bill Simon -- who opposed Davis in November -- walked up the steps to file papers for the recall election. Simon, who lost to Davis by 364,000 votes, deflected questions that suggested his candidacy was an attempt to disregard the election results from eight months ago, when Davis won his second term. "This is about the millions of people who have stood up. They are fed up," he said. "Let the people decide, like they decided they wanted a recall election, who they want to be their next governor." Barring a surprise -- and there have been some so far -- California voters will go through a two-part procedure October 7, first choosing whether to recall Davis, then picking a replacement candidate to serve if Davis is recalled. That candidate -- who needs only to win the most votes, not a majority -- will serve as chief executive of the largest state in the union for the remaining three-and-a-half years of Davis' term. The recall effort -- pushed by Republicans -- sprang from widespread dissatisfaction with Davis' tenure amid a weak state economy and the growing budget deficit. CNN correspondents Dana Bash, Miguel Marquez, Bob Franken, Candy Crowley, Deborah Feyerick, Kelly Wallace and Thelma Gutierrez, senior political analyst Bill Schneider, and senior analyst Jeff Greenfield contributed to this report.
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