Shriver Hears From Other Camp

In her first campaign swing through Northern California on behalf of her husband, Arnold Schwarzenegger, journalist Maria Shriver on Monday appeared at a voter-registration booth at a suburban Wal-Mart and got an earful from angry union members opposed to the recall and the discount chain’s employment policies.

As Shriver chatted briefly with people filling out voter-registration forms outside the garden center of the Natomas Wal-Mart, booming chants of “No recall!” by about 100 union members drowned out the cries of “Ar-nold!” from a much smaller band of Schwarzenegger supporters. The booth was part of a registration drive by the Schwarzenegger campaign.

Shriver appeared to take the mixed reception in stride.

“I think it’s great when people exercise their voice, whatever it is,” Shriver told reporters, her words barely audible above the shouts of recall opponents. “I hope that the 13 million people that sat out the last election will come out. That’s a great thing for California, no matter who wins. I don’t view it as anti-Arnold. I don’t take that personally at all.”

Asked about the negative perceptions of Schwarzenegger by some women, Shriver expressed admiration for her husband and said she didn’t live her life “by what other people think.” Then, less than 15 minutes after she arrived, Shriver was hustled back into the garden center and the gate was slammed shut behind her to keep journalists and hecklers at bay as she made her exit.

Union leaders denounced Schwarzenegger for his association with Wal-Mart and for his wife’s appearance outside the store, which is the target of a nationwide campaign by labor groups that accuse the company of not providing affordable health plans for employees and their families.

Amy Halley Hill, a Wal-Mart spokeswoman, defended the company’s policies as “pro-employee.”

While union members had nothing good to say about Schwarzenegger, some of the people who made their way through the throng of recall opponents, reporters and television cameras said the actor was their choice for governor in the Oct. 7 special election.

“I’m voting for him, definitely,” said Virginia Garner, 58, who described herself as a lifelong Democrat. Garner said she was registering to vote for the first time since moving to Sacramento three years ago.

“I just don’t like any of the Democratic candidates,” she added. “I like Arnold because he has his own money and said he won’t be bought by special interests. And he says he’s for the children. And he’s for repealing the car tax.”

Her 7-year-old grandson, Dakota, was rooting for Schwarzenegger for other reasons, she said.

“Of course, he loves the Terminator!”

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Schwarzenegger Seeks Davis Apology

It’s spelled Cal-i-fornia but pronounced Cal-a-fornia, at least by most Californians.

But eager to portray Gov. Gray Davis as a negative campaigner, Arnold Schwarzenegger’s campaign Monday demanded an apology from the governor for joking about the actor’s Austrian accent.

The Sacramento Bee reported that at a recent union rally, Davis told a voter, “You shouldn’t be governor unless you can pronounce the name of the state.”

Both Republican Schwarzenegger and independent candidate Arianna Huffington, who is from Greece, pronounce California the same way it is spelled.

Huffington, a native of Athens whose punditry is spiced with a silky accent, said that the governor was out of step with Californians. The independent candidate criticized Davis’ comment during an appearance at Orange Coast College, one of the first stops of her weeklong college tour.

“For Davis to make such a remark shows that he is out of touch with a huge minority of the population,” said Parker Blackman, Huffington’s campaign spokesman. “Nine million Californians were not born in this country.”

At the other end of the political spectrum, state Republican Party Chairman Duf Sundheim also condemned the governor’s remark.

“Governor Davis owes an apology to the millions of Californians who speak English as a second language,” Sundheim said in a statement.

“Davis has claimed he was just joking around, but there is nothing funny about racial insensitivity.”

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Bustamante ‘Crossed a Line,’ Connerly Says

Proposition 54 campaign chairman Ward Connerly on Monday accused Lt. Gov. Cruz Bustamante of having “crossed a line” by vowing to spend nearly

$4 million in campaign contributions to defeat the ballot initiative and he said he might request equal time from broadcast media to respond to Bustamante’s statements against the proposal.

“We’re not throwing in the towel, by any means,” Connerly said at a Sacramento news conference.

Over the weekend, Connerly all but conceded defeat, citing the well-financed campaign against the measure.

Connerly said Monday that Proposition 54 was aimed at ending a “17th-century racial classification system” and achieving a “color-blind government.” Proposition 54 would limit the ability of state and local governments in California to collect and use racial and ethnic data. It is opposed by Gov. Gray Davis and other top Democrats, many minority advocates, unions and health-care groups.

Connerly said opponents were making unfounded charges that Proposition 54 would threaten public health by preventing needed data from being collected.

“It’s phony,” he said after the news conference. “It’s all designed to throw something on the wall to get people to doubt it.”

Proposition 54 would allow continued collection of data needed for medical research and data required by federal law or for federal funds and some law enforcement activities, Connerly said. He said the latter would include the collection of data to determine whether law enforcement officers are guilty of racial profiling.

Connerly said the accelerated special election schedule that put the issue on the Oct. 7 ballot along with the recall -- rather than putting the issue to a vote in the presidential primary next March -- was making it difficult to raise the money needed to make the case for Proposition 54.

“The timing for this recall totally threw us for a loop,” he said.

He said the Republican Party wasn’t giving financial support to the initiative because Republicans are “afraid of their shadow when it comes to anything related to race or ethnicity.”