Fans want Arnie in White House

2004-11-16 09:21

Los Angeles - Fans of California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger on Monday launched an advertising blitz pushing for a constitutional change to allow foreign-born citizens to become US president.

A group dubbed "Amend For Arnold" put together by a supporter of the Austrian-born movie star who helped bankroll his rise to power in California one year ago, launched a series of television ads in the Golden State.

"You cannot choose the land of your birth. You can choose the land you love," said mutual fund manager Lissa Morgenthaler-Jones in the advertisement, which started airing on California cable TV stations on Monday.

Morgenthaler-Jones, a major donor to Schwarzenegger's campaign for elections in October 2003, which transformed him from action star into politician, is drumming up support for a proposed constitutional amendment that is currently wending its way through the US legislature.

It marks the first large-scale drive to generate public support for allowing Schwarzenegger to run for president following his stellar performance and huge public popularity as governor of California.

The "Equal Opportunity to Govern Amendment" was introduced into the US Senate Judiciary Committee in July 2003 by Republican Senator Orrin Hatch, but has made little progress.

The amendment requires the backing of two thirds of the US House of Representatives and two thirds of the US Senate to pass and must then be ratified by three quarters, or 38, of the 50 US states.

"Thousands of amendments are floated in Congress every year but virtually all of them sink out of sight," the group said on its website.

"The last one ratified was the 27th Amendment in 1992. So ... we're going to need help in every state," the site said. "And that's where you come in."

The bill would change article 2, section 1 of the US Constitution that states: "No Person except a natural born citizen, or a citizen of the United States."

The 57-year-old former bodybuilding champion and star of the "Terminator" movies made his national political debut at the Republican convention in New York in August. He admitted for the first time in October that he was eying America's top office.

"Yes, absolutely," Schwarzenegger replied when asked during a CBS "60 Minutes" interview whether he would like to run for the presidency.

"Why not? With my way of thinking, you always shoot for the top," he said, shifting away from the vague responses he had previously offered to the question.

The moderate Republican stressed however that he was not actively thinking of a presidential bid, as his priority remained unravelling California's financial troubles.

Conservative President George W Bush cashed in on Schwarzenegger's celebrity and popularity by enlisting his help in campaigning in the crucial state of Ohio ahead of the November 2 election that saw Bush re-elected.

- AFP