Shriver faces angry crowd at campaign stop
SACRAMENTO -- A crowd at a mall in California's capital met Arnold Schwarzenegger's wife, Maria Shriver, with hostility yesterday as she made her first solo appearance in the gubernatorial campaign.
The Austrian-born Republican actor has generated very positive reaction in public since he announced that he would run to replace Governor Gray Davis in an Oct. 7 recall election, with many clamoring for his autograph and a handshake.
Yet opponents of the recall, including union members, gathered outside a Sacramento Wal-Mart to shout, carry placards, and otherwise express their opposition to the recall when Shriver appeared at a voter registration booth.
"She's over here promoting a company that's refusing to pay health care for its workers," said Bill Camp, executive secretary of the Sacramento Central Labor Council. "She should be ashamed. Her grandfather would be appalled."
Wal-Mart, the world's largest retail chain, has been the subject of numerous lawsuits in California, where gubernatorial candidate Cruz Bustamante recently attacked the company's labor practices.
Shriver, granddaughter of Joseph Kennedy and niece of President Kennedy, is a member of the the country's best-known Democratic family, but has backed her Republican husband's entry into politics.
"I think the more people that are involved in the political process, the better, even if it's picketing," she told a crush of reporters and onlookers before cutting her visit short. "I think that's what's great about this country."
Some in the crowd of several hundred, however, cheered her as they carried signs that read "Join Arnold."
In the face of renewed focus on old Schwarzenegger interviews about his fast life as a bodybuilder in the 1970s, Shriver could help widen support for her husband.
In her brief remarks, she spoke of the difficulty of maintaining a normal family life for their four children in such a campaign.
"My main focus is to keep my children's life normal, to get them into school. I started two kids in new schools, so that's important for me," said Shriver, who is a Democrat.
"I talk to them about volunteering and campaigns, and that's a great thing, and I taught them about having tolerance for people's different political opinions, not to ever get into an argument with somebody, because people come from different places in their lives."
Davis's wife, Sharon, has actively campaigned for her husband in recent weeks, bringing a warmth and personal style to the campaign trial that even the governor's allies say he lacks.
