Arnold Schwarzenegger at a San Diego rally to kicking off his bus tour on
Thursday: "To those people that I offended I want to say that I am deeply
sorry and I apologize."



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SAN DIEGO (CNN) -- Facing allegations of sexual impropriety in the final
stretch of California's gubernatorial recall campaign, Republican
front-runner Arnold Schwarzenegger said Thursday he had "behaved badly" in
the past and apologized to anyone he offended.
"Yes, it is true that I was on rowdy movie sets, and I have done things that
were not right, which I thought then was playful," he said. "But now I
recognize that I have offended people, and to those people that I have
offended, I want to say to them I am deeply sorry about that, and I
apologize, because this is not what I tried to do.
"When I am governor, I want to prove to the women that I will be ... a
champion of the women," he said. "And I hope that you will give me the
chance to prove that."
The allegations were published Thursday in a front-page article in the Los
Angeles Time and come just five days before the October 7 recall election.
Voters will decide whether to toss Democratic Gov. Gray Davis out of office
and, in a second part of the ballot, pick a replacement from 135 names in
case the recall is approved.
Asked about the allegations against Schwarzenegger during an appearance in
Santa Monica, Davis refused to give his personal reaction. He said he would
leave it up to the voters of California to decide how much weight to give
the allegations.
"Anything I would say would be superfluous," said Davis, who in recent days
has cast the recall race as a battle between himself and Schwarzenegger.
But Democratic Lt. Gov. Cruz Bustamante, slipping behind Schwarzenegger in
recent polls, was much less reticent in embracing the controversy. Speaking
to reporters, he even read aloud the California Penal Code's definition of
sexual battery.
"It is more than just boorish behavior," he said. "These multiple
allegations by these women, I believe, will dog Arnold and make him less
effective in dealing with the issues that are confronting California. ...
"Women cannot be approached like that in the workplace. It's absolutely
wrong," he said. "If there are women who are coming forward with these
allegations, they should be resolved."
Despite his apology, Schwarzenegger characterized the charges as an effort
to derail his campaign, which is leading in the polls.
"As you know, this morning, they have begun with the tearing down," he said.
"But I know that the people of California can see through this trash
politics."
Earlier in the day, Schwarzenegger said some of the accusations made against
him were not true, but he was not specific. His campaign issued a statement
saying the story represented "a desperate attempt by Democrats so close to
the election" to smear him.
However, the Los Angeles Times said its report was not prompted by
information from rival campaigns. ABC's Good Morning America also reported
Thursday that it had learned similar information without the help of any
campaign operatives.
When asked if Davis would make use of the allegations against Schwarzenegger
in the final stretch of the campaign, spokesman Peter Ragone said, "It's not
something that we are talking about. It's something for the voters to decide
about."
Six women alleged that Schwarzenegger touched them in a sexual manner
without their consent, according to the newspaper. The alleged acts date
back to the 1970s, and the latest was in 2000. The newspaper contacted the
women in the course of a seven-week investigation; none of them approached
the newspaper, the Times said.
Schwarzenegger has been dogged throughout the campaign by allegations that
he mistreats women, prompting some women's groups to protest at his
appearances. He has denied being a misogynist, and his wife, TV newswoman
Maria Shriver, also has defended him against charges that he treats women
badly.
A spokeswoman for Shriver said she would not comment on the latest
allegations. She planned to continue campaigning for her husband, though she
was not planning to join him on a four-day bus tour that started Thursday,
the spokeswoman said.
Earlier comments
Fueling the controversy were comments Schwarzenegger made in a 1977 magazine
article describing a sexual encounter that he and other bodybuilders had
with a woman in a gym, as well as a comments he made in a book published the
same year about treating women as sex objects.
Schwarzenegger now says his comments back then were exaggerations --
deliberately designed to be "outrageous" to draw attention to the fledgling
sport of bodybuilding.
Schwarzenegger's apology was made in front of supporters in San Diego, at
the kick-off of his bus tour, which will take him up and down the state to
rally voters in the campaign's final days.
He left the hall smiling and waving from the steps of a bus festooned with a
huge portrait of himself, christened the "California Comeback Express." The
song, "We're Not Going to Take It," from the heavy metal band Twisted
Sister, played in the background as the bus rolled slowly outside.
"We are now in the last few days. It is hand-to-hand combat. We are in the
trenches now. We have to fight every inch of the way until we get there," he
said.
Two of the six women in the Times report were identified; the other four
spoke on the condition of anonymity, saying they feared retaliation. None of
the six has filed legal action against Schwarzenegger. None alleged that
they were raped.
Three of the women said Schwarzenegger grabbed their breasts; another said
he reached under her skirt and grabbed her buttocks. The fifth woman said he
groped her and tried to remove her bathing suit in an elevator, and the
sixth charged that he pulled her on his lap and asked whether anyone had
performed a certain sexual act on her.
"I was just shocked -- shocked to the point where I almost didn't how to
react, because it was so out of the blue and so unexpected," said E. Laine
Stockton, who told the Times that Schwarzenegger reached under her T-shirt
and touched her breast at the famed Gold's Gym in Santa Monica in 1975.
One of the unidentified women told the newspaper that after Schwarzenegger
touched her breast on a Santa Monica street in 1980, she made it clear that
she didn't consider it playful.
She told the Times that she told him, "If I was a man, I would bust your
jaw." Schwarzenegger, she said, just laughed.
--CNN Correspondents Frank Buckley and Kelly Wallace contributed to this
report