ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER

On his final day of campaigning, Arnold Schwarzenegger told enthusiastic crowds that the election-day question is clear-cut: whether California’s finances, economy and image should languish under Gov. Gray Davis or rebound under the inspired leadership he vowed to deliver.

The recall, he told about 500 people packed into an airplane hangar here, is a popular uprising aimed at a cloistered political class that has lost touch with average Californians.

“Tomorrow, it is all about the people versus the government, the politicians,” he said. “It is the people versus the politicians. So make sure you go out and vote.”

Schwarzenegger led rallies here, in Huntington Beach and in San Bernardino, flying up and down the state in a private jet. Dozens of journalists followed on a separate plane.

For several days, the campaign has been dogged by charges that Schwarzenegger groped and mistreated women over a span of three decades. Though he dismissed the accusations in some recent campaign appearances as “puke politics,” he made no mention of them at any of his rallies Monday. Still, the campaign dropped in symbolic messages to portray Schwarzenegger as respectful of women.

Behind him on the stage here were no fewer than 50 women, many of them waving signs reading, “Remarkable Women for Arnold.” At other moments on the trail, the visuals weren’t so accommodating. At the rally in Huntington Beach, a young woman on stage was wearing a bikini. She was given a shirt to put on before Schwarzenegger arrived for his speech.

Schwarzenegger was introduced at all three rallies by his wife, Maria Shriver, who has appeared frequently with him since the charges were first published in The Times on Thursday. Family was trumpeted. Shriver’s mother, Eunice, joined the couple on stage at the Huntington Beach rally, where young men and women holding surfboards stood in the background, the ocean in the distance. Schwarzenegger was given a surfboard as a gift, complete with his likeness.

In her introductions, Maria Shriver spoke of the couple’s 17-year marriage and mentioned that she had told their children that it took “great, great courage” for their father “to jump into this race.”

“The reason he’s in this race is because of you,” Shriver told the crowd here. “He wants to make a difference in your life. He wants to bring this state back and bring more jobs to this state.”

Shriver told the 1,500-some people gathered on an airport tarmac in San Bernardino: “I’m so proud of this man. So proud.”

Sounding a bit tired and slightly hoarse, Schwarzenegger stayed with tested campaign themes in a well-choreographed day that left little to chance. He gave interviews to TV and radio stations, but stayed away from print journalists. Crowds were ebullient. At the final rally in San Bernardino, parents hoisted young children onto their shoulders for a glimpse of the action movie star. Supporters lined the pier in Huntington Beach for Schwarzenegger’s 10-minute speech.

“I like his support of the youth,” said Debbie Drummond, 47, of Milpitas, who came to the rally here. “I like that he wants to bring the budget under control. There’s no excuse that a state can’t control a budget.”

Schwarzenegger told crowds he wanted to craft a vision for the state as compelling as John F. Kennedy’s call for a manned moon landing and Ronald Reagan’s depiction of the United States as a “shining city on a hill.”

“We need new leadership,” he said here, adding that he wanted to “make California the greatest state again, in the greatest nation. That’s what we’re going to do to California -- turn it around.”

With the beach as a backdrop in Huntington Beach, he pledged to fight offshore drilling.

“When I become governor of this state, I will make sure the federal government buys up the leases so we stop the oil drilling off our shores in California,” he said.

He described himself as a nightmare for special interests that have reigned in Sacramento under what he called a compliant Davis administration.

“I know that when I go up to Sacramento, the special interests are going to go crazy,” he told the crowd here. “ ‘Oh my God, what are those reforms they’re trying to do?’ They’ll start coming at us. And they’ll start pushing and pushing. And let me tell you something: I will push back.”

Though protesters swarmed some of his weekend rallies, they were hardly in evidence Monday. In these friendly audiences, few seemed bothered by the allegations Schwarzenegger has tried to rebut.

In San Bernardino, two women walked through the crowd wearing T-shirts bearing a message: “Davis Groped My Wallet.”