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Schwarzenegger, Davis stump through state on election eve

Davis and Schwarzenegger both expressed confidence during eleventh-hour campaign appearances Monday.
Davis and Schwarzenegger both expressed confidence during eleventh-hour campaign appearances Monday.

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California Recall
Arnold Schwarzenegger
Gray Davis

LOS ANGELES, California (CNN) -- With hours left before Californians start voting in the state's recall election, GOP front-runner Arnold Schwarzenegger and Democratic Gov. Gray Davis crisscrossed the state Monday, trying to whip up support for Tuesday's climax of one of the most bizarre episodes in recent U.S. political history.

After rallies in San Jose and on the sands of Huntington Beach, with surfers and surfboards as a backdrop, Schwarzenegger closed his campaign before sign-waving supporters on an airport tarmac in San Bernardino.

"We have to make sure that we get the government back tomorrow," he said. "The choices tomorrow are very simple. Do you want to go backwards with Gray Davis, or do you want to go forward with Arnold? Tomorrow is the people versus the politicians."

Schwarzenegger's campaign has been rocked over the past five days by allegations from at least 15 women that he groped and sexually harassed them in incidents stretching back three decades.

Women were featured prominently on the rostrum at his speeches Monday, and both his wife, Maria Shriver, and her mother, Eunice Kennedy Shriver, sister of the late President John F. Kennedy, were on hand to offer very public support.

Meanwhile, Davis, the man Schwarzenegger hopes to replace, spent the day rallying his Democratic base, addressing a youth event in Sacramento and a firefighters' union in San Francisco before returning to his hometown of Los Angeles for a get-out-the-vote event by recall opponents.

At the final rally, he was introduced by his wife, Sharon, who -- alluding to the character issues raised in the closing days of the campaign -- said her husband "has never been accused of anything more serious than being dull."

"Right now, dull looks pretty good to me," she said.

Davis told his supporters that the recall race was "razor close."

"If you give me a chance to finish the term you elected me to, I'll work with all my heart and all my soul and all my strength to bring this state together and to move us all forward together," he said.

"It's not just me they want to recall. It's all the progress we have made together. This election is not just what happens to me. It's what happens to all of you and your future and your children."

Davis also warned Democrats Monday that if he is recalled, the party's presidential nominee will have much harder time carrying California against President Bush in 2004.

"This is the opening battle in the presidential race in 2004. If you want to vote for any Democrat in 2004, they will all have to spend $15 million to carry California if I'm not sitting there to advance Democratic values and support our nominee," he told firefighters in San Francisco.

Voters face a two-part ballot Tuesday. The first asks them whether they want to remove Davis from office. The second asks them to choose from a list of 135 possible replacements. (Interactive: How the ballot works)

Pre-election polls have shown a majority of likely voters favoring the recall and Schwarzenegger leading the pack on the replacement ballot. But the sexual harassment allegations have thrown the race into an unpredictable tumult.

The Davis campaign is hoping the charges will raise enough doubts in the minds of enough voters to turn the tide against the recall.

Schwarzenegger's nearest rival in the replacement race, Democratic Lt. Gov. Cruz Bustamante, has also been hitting the actor-turned-politician over the allegations, trying to close the gap between him and Schwarzenegger.

The candidate in third place in the polls, conservative GOP state Sen. Tom McClintock, jumped into the same fray Monday, suggesting that his fellow Republican, Schwarzenegger, needed to offer a more detailed defense.

"I think that he needs to come forth and forthrightly explain his response to these charges, which are very serious," McClintock told CNN. "I think there's a lot that Arnold Schwarzenegger could do simply by stepping forward and helping the public sort out what's fact and what's not."

But in an interview with NBC, Schwarzenegger said a detailed response to the allegations would have to wait until after Tuesday's vote.

"As soon as the campaign is over, I can get into all those kind of specifics and find out what is really going on," he said. "But right now, I'm just really occupied with the campaign, and I want to be able to reach out to as many people as possible."

Schwarzenegger has said some of the claims are not true and that he doesn't remember others. But he also conceded that he had "behaved badly" toward women in the past and offered a blanket apology to anyone he offended. (Full story)

He has also been dogged by allegations that he expressed admiration for Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler in a 1975 interview, though those charges largely dissipated after two figures involved in the interview discounted them. Schwarzenegger, who, like Hitler, is a native of Austria, has vehemently denied that he ever had Nazi sympathies. (Full story)

Schwarzenegger and his campaign have accused Davis and his fellow Democrats of helping orchestrate the last-minute charges, which he dismissed as "puke politics."

Karen Hanretty, a spokeswoman for the Schwarzenegger campaign, said Monday that voters are "tired of this negative campaigning by Gray Davis."

"Ten-thousand supporters turned out yesterday in Sacramento to see Arnold Schwarzenegger, the next governor of California," she said. "They are very suspicious of these last-minute, 11th-hour allegations."

The Davis campaign has denied that it had any role in bringing the charges to light.

In the last week of the campaign, the embattled governor has been casting the recall race as a choice between him and Schwarzenegger -- and suggesting that Schwarzenegger has neither the experience nor the character to be chief executive of the largest state in the union.

Davis also charged Monday that Schwarzenegger has not leveled with people about what cuts he plans to make in order to balance the state's budget without a tax increase.

"The bottom line is, if you haven't run for office before, you have an obligation to be straight with people, tell them what you're going to do, say what your plans are, put it out there and let people decide," he said.

Meanwhile, Bustamante campaigned with members of the United Farm Workers union in Los Angeles, urging them to help turn out voters Tuesday.

"We cannot win without you," he said. "We need to get people out of their homes and into the polls -- not just one member of the family, but every member of the family that's registered."


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