Arnie gets egg on his face
2003-09-04 07:46
Los Angeles - California Governor Gray Davis was to debate five candidates for his job on Wednesday night, but the public's attention was fixated on the one who bowed out: Arnold Schwarzenegger.
As Davis, deputy governor Cruz Bustamante, United States Republican Senator Tom McClintock, Peter Camejo of the Green Party and independents Ariana Huffington and Peter Ueberroth prepared to debate in Walnut Creek, in northern California, Schwarzenegger was campaigning in Long Beach at the other end of the state.
Speaking at the University of California campus there, the action film hero and former Mr Universe was hit by an egg.
Unruffled, he removed his soiled jacket, handed it to an aide, and continued to expound on his plans to pull the country's largest state out of its economic doldrums.
But only five weeks before the October 7 vote, the Terminator star was drawing the wrath of critics for refusing to participate in the first televised debate in the run-up to the historic recall election.
He has said he will take part in a September 17 debate being organised by the California Broadcasters Association.
Analysts said that, although Wednesday's debate was being broadcast throughout the state and nation, Schwarzenegger continued to command the lion's share of voter attention.
"Unless something extraordinary happens, like if Davis drops his pants, or something like that, coverage will centre on the absence of a candidate when in reality the important thing is something else," Marc Petracca, political science professor at the University of California, Irvine, said in an interview with the Spanish language newspaper La Opinion.
Schwarzenegger has said that instead of debates, he will conduct a campaign that will include public events and interviews and that in the end Californians will know more than enough about him.