Bob Franken: California race 'in total turmoil'
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CNN's Bob Franken
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LOS ANGELES, California (CNN) -- Governor Gray Davis and Republican Arnold Schwarzenegger are pressing ahead with their campaigns on the eve of a recall vote that polls show is far from being predictable.
Over the weekend Schwarzenegger gave a limited response to sexual impropriety claims made against him in the past few days, while Davis began to speak more openly about the accusations.
CNN national correspondent Bob Franken reported on the latest accusations traded between the camps.
FRANKEN: It was not going according to the script that Arnold Schwarzenegger had plotted out before last Thursday when he was expecting that this last weekend of the campaign would be a victory tour, as he pulled further and further ahead of Gray Davis, now that this has in effect become a two-man race.
But, of course, with these allegations -- the ones concerning the charges by the women that say Schwarzenegger molested them over decades and the questions that have been raised about his statements about Hitler -- with all of this, the race is really now one that is in total turmoil.
The polls really don't have a handle on it. Schwarzenegger is saying that the time has come to talk about something else. The other side is saying, don't bet on that.
(START VIDEO)
DAVIS: There have been some evasions, occasional apology, occasional denial. The question comes down to this: Are all 15 women lying or is Arnold Schwarzenegger not telling us the truth?
SCHWARZENEGGER: No one ever came to me in my life and said to me that I "did anything that I don't want you to do, you went over the line." Now, all of a sudden, isn't it odd that three, four days before the campaign, all of a sudden all these women want to have an apology. Isn't it odd?
(END VIDEO)
FRANKEN: So Schwarzenegger is making the contention that all this is part of a last-minute smear campaign. The other side is trying to see if, in fact, all these charges stick.
