Accusations Make for a Turbulent Week

Monday

* As the campaign entered its final leg, Arnold Schwarzenegger appeared to pick up momentum in his drive to unseat Gov. Gray Davis, with a new USA Today/CNN poll showing his candidacy on the ascent.

The actor told a crowd: “This is now hand-to-hand combat. We are not in the trenches. This is war.”

Lt. Gov. Cruz Bustamante, whom the poll showed losing support, stressed the need for Democratic unity. “We had hoped by the time we had got to the end that we would be able to unify the family, the Democratic family.”

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Tuesday

* A solid majority of likely voters favored removing Davis from office in the recall election, and Arnold Schwarzenegger had surged ahead of his rivals in the race to succeed him, according to a Times poll. By 56% to 42%, likely voters support ousting the Democratic incumbent, a sign that Davis had lost ground in the closing phase of his battle for political survival. Support for Davis had slipped in key parts of his political base -- Democrats, women, moderates and liberals among them -- since the last Times poll in early September found 50% for the recall and 47% against it. Poll respondent Gladys Taub, a North Hills Democrat, said: “Gov. Davis has been doing a terrible job, and I just want to get rid of him. Look at the state our state is in. If I ran my home that way, spending a whole lot more money than I was taking in, I’d wind up bankrupt.”

Jim Rego, 58, a Castro Valley independent, said of the Republican actor: “I look at him as maybe like a Kennedy, where he really wants to do something good, because he’s not in it for the money.”

* Independent Arianna Huffington withdrew from the race to replace Davis, saying she was worried about the prospect of Schwarzenegger as governor.

“I have a sense of foreboding about what could happen to the state” if Schwarzenegger is elected, Huffington said in an interview.

Huffington said she planned to tell disaffected voters: “I understand why you want a change and why you may be tempted to vote for Schwarzenegger, because you see him as an outsider. But wake up and look at the reality of who Schwarzenegger is.”

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Wednesday

* Six women who came into contact with Arnold Schwarzenegger on movie sets, in studio offices and in other settings over the last three decades said he had touched them in a sexual manner without their consent. Three of the women described their surprise and discomfort when Schwarzenegger grabbed their breasts. A fourth said that he had reached under her skirt and gripped her buttocks. A fifth woman said Schwarzenegger had groped her and tried to remove her bathing suit in a hotel elevator. A sixth said Schwarzenegger had pulled her onto his lap and asked whether a certain sexual act had ever been performed on her.

“Did he rape me? No,” said one woman, who described a 1980 encounter in which she said Schwarzenegger had touched her breast. “Did he humiliate me? You bet he did.”

E. Laine Stockton said she was sitting on an exercise bench at a gym in 1975 when Schwarzenegger walked up behind her, reached under her T-shirt and touched her bare left breast. “The gym is full of bodybuilders and Arnold comes and he gropes my breast -- actually touches my breast with his left hand,” she said.

Schwarzenegger’s campaign spokesman, Sean Walsh, said the candidate had not engaged in improper conduct toward women. “We believe Democrats and others are using this to try to hurt Arnold Schwarzenegger’s campaign,” Walsh said.

* Schwarzenegger announced a 10-step plan for his first 100 days in office and declared that if legislators didn’t follow his lead, he would seek approval for his proposals through the initiative process. Schwarzenegger’s speech was significant for its tone and purpose -- compiling the disparate proposals of his campaign into one speech and presenting it under the mantle of a presumed governor-elect. “I am not here today to talk about campaigning,” he said. “I’m here today to talk about governing.” He also said: “The question really is: What would a Davis administration do in the next 100 days? They say no to the recall to take us back. I say yes to California. I will move us forward.”

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Thursday

* Schwarzenegger apologized for having “behaved badly” toward women and insisted that he would champion their cause. Responding to a Times story on accusations by six women that he had touched them in a sexual manner without their consent, Schwarzenegger dismissed the report as “trash politics,” but went on to acknowledge unspecified wrongdoing.

Schwarzenegger said: “I always say that wherever there is smoke, there is fire.... So I want to say to you, yes, I have behaved badly sometimes. 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. But I now 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.”

Later, he added: “It’s very interesting that, since I’m ahead in the campaign, all the things are coming out.... I’m very pro-women. I’m very much into equality. Those things are not coming out.”

* Schwarzenegger also denied allegations in the New York Times and on ABC’s “World News Tonight” that he had expressed admiration for Adolf Hitler during the 1970s. “I always despised everything Hitler stood for,” said Schwarzenegger, whose father was a Nazi. “I hate the regime, the Third Reich and all of those whole Nazi philosophy, have always fought against that.”

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Friday

* Davis said allegations that Schwarzenegger had engaged in sexual misconduct and once expressed admiration for Hitler cast doubt on the actor’s fitness for the state’s highest public office. After apologizing for having “behaved badly” toward women in incidents that he saw as “playful” at the time, the actor said that he could not imagine having made admiring comments about Hitler.

Davis said: “If true, his personal behavior was disturbing and unacceptable and his professed admiration for Adolf Hitler unconscionable.”

Schwarzenegger, on a bus tour, said: “I have always despised everything that Hitler stands for.” He also said: “And with the history of my country, Germany, Austria were all part of it. That’s why I’m very adamant for the fight against prejudice and to never let that happen again.” Later, the Republican actor again suggested that the last-minute disclosures had been politically motivated. “They try to tear your character down and everything you stand for,” he told 2,000 supporters at a rally in Arcadia. “And let me tell you something: They have already begun, but I will stay focused. I will always stay focused, because the fight continues.”

* Three more women said that Schwarzenegger had grabbed or groped them. An assistant director on the 1988 film “Twins” said the actor had regularly undressed in front of her in his trailer. Once, she said, he had pulled her down on a bed while he was wearing only underwear. A stand-in on the same movie set said the actor had sandwiched her between himself and a crew member and forced his tongue into her mouth. An intern at CNN in Los Angeles in the early 1980s said Schwarzenegger had grabbed her buttocks and told her she had a “nice ass.”

The stand-in on the movie set, Carla Baron, said she was standing next to a food service table with Schwarzenegger and his longtime stand-in. The stand-in moved behind her while Schwarzenegger stood in front. “I said something along the line of, ‘Boys, the sandbox is out back,’ ” Baron said. “Arnold said, ‘No, I think we should make a Carla sandwich,’ “she said. With Schwarzenegger facing her and the stand-in behind, they squeezed her between them, Baron said. After they separated, Schwarzenegger, who had just been smoking a cigar, bent her over and pushed his tongue into her mouth, she said. “There was this tongue just lunging down my throat,” Baron said. “I am in shock at this point. I wanted to throw up from the taste. It was worse than licking an ashtray. It was like an ashtray of human flesh.”

Schwarzenegger’s campaign denied the new allegations. Ivan Reitman, the director of “Twins,” said: “I was on the set all the time and it was one of the friendliest shoots I’ve ever been on. No raunchy stuff. People’s families were there.... Nothing even approximating what you’re saying happened. I would have heard something.”

* A documentary film producer said that comments he had attributed to Schwarzenegger expressing admiration for Hitler had been taken out of context, and that the actor actually had disparaged the Nazi leader for using power “in the wrong way.”