Beatty Takes On Arnie

For years, Arnold Schwarzenegger and Warren Beatty did battle at the box office. Now, the two Hollywood giants are crossing swords in the politics arena, too.

Californians head to the polls Tuesday to vote in a special election on a series of propositions that are seen as a referendum on Schwarzenegger's policies as California governor.

Beatty, who has been among the governor's most vocal critics, sat down with Linda Breakstone, a political reporter for the CBS Los Angeles station, KCBS-TV.

He addressed, as Breakstone puts it, "his purpose, his passion, his view of California's governor, and his own political ambitions."

"Far be it for me to say such a terrible thing, that we may have to raise taxes a little, because that will be the quote that will come from Arnold's spokesman and (President) Bush's people," Beatty remarked to Breakstone.

"I don't want to run for governor," he continued. "I have a very nice life. I have four young children who could be my grandchildren, and I, you know, really like to make movies."

California's Field Poll has just put Beatty in a statistical tie, should he ever run against Schwarzenegger.

"I really believe (that) in the cacophony of this new media age, that you can perform a public service, sometimes greater, by being out of public office than by being in," Beatty asserted.

And his passion, observes Breakstone, is to oppose Schwarzenegger, who Beatty thinks went down a dangerous path because, he says, "If these things pass in the state of California, they will reverberate back throughout the country."

Somewhat out of character, Schwarzenegger's wife, Maria Shriver, last week tweaked her old friend Beatty, saying at one point recently, ""Thank God I don't see Warren Beatty.

"Its fine," Beatty said. "I don't want to say anything about Maria. Look, if you have been as politically active as I have been since the middle '60s, I would feel to be silent at this point would be to be complicit."

Another big name in Hollywood, director Rob Reiner, is also fighting one of Schwarzenegger's initiatives.

Reiner, like Beatty, has been mentioned as a possible gubernatorial candidate but Reiner, like Beatty, has said he isn't running. As it did with Beatty, the Field Poll put Reiner about even with Schwarzenegger.

A majority of California voters questioned for the Field Poll said they are unlikely to support Schwarzenegger for re-election next year, mostly because of his call for the special election next week.

But Schwarzenegger remains competitive when matched against potential Democratic challengers, including Beatty and Reiner, the poll found.

The governor continued to push four ballot measures that would strengthen his hand against legislators and public employee unions.

Fifty-five percent of voters in the poll said they are not inclined to support Schwarzenegger next year, while 36 percent said they would support him and 9 percent expressed no opinion.

Schwarzenegger's poll numbers dropped earlier this year when he announced plans for the special election."The governor has never been able to sell them on the idea and have questioned his motives," Field Poll director Mark DiCamillo said.

Schwarzenegger campaign spokesman Todd Harris called the poll meaningless.

"I'm not going to pay a second's worth of thought to a poll that asks voters about a hypothetical ballot match up that is one year and three elections away," Harris said.

In a faceoff against various Democrats, state Treasurer Phil Angelides and state Controller Steve Westly held slight leads over the governor. Reiner was about even, and Beatty slightly behind.

The telephone poll was taken during the second half of October in two samples, totaling 1,450 voters. The margin of error was 4 to 6 percentage points.

CBS News Correspondent Vince Gonzalez reports that Schwarzenegger is coming under fire for taking money from special interests after championing the cause of spurning such donations.

Beatty has taped a radio ad for the California Nurses Association that urges voters to turn out next week and turn down Schwarzenegger's "year of reform" initiatives.

Reiner, meanwhile, was working to persuade voters to cast their ballots against Proposition 75, an initiative that seeks to reduce the money public employee labor unions can raise for political purposes.

Beatty said he believes the special election has been orchestrated by the governor and his supporters so that most voters will not participate and give Republicans a better chance of passing their agenda.

"To me, it's a misuse of the initiative process," Beatty told The Associated Press. "It's a clear device to circumvent the legislature and spend a lot of money on oversimplified descriptions of these propositions and hope that the Trojan horses, (which) each of these are, will deceive a bored and not well-enough-informed public into staying home or vote in a way that is against their own best interest."

Beatty's 60-second ad, which he wrote, was for use on radio stations in Los Angeles and the San Francisco Bay area.

Schwarzenegger, a Republican, is promoting the union dues measure and three other initiatives on the Nov. 8 ballot: Proposition 74, which lengthens the probationary term for new teachers; Proposition 76, which imposes a cap on state spending and gives the governor authority to make midyear budget cuts; and Proposition 77, which transfers the authority for drawing legislative and congressional districts from the state legislature to a panel of retired judges.

Reiner is promoting an initiative of his own for 2006, a proposal to provide a preschool education for every California child.

In a campaign appearance last month, Reiner said the union dues measure was designed specifically to stifle political speech of unionized workers.

"The things I care about — education, health care, energy, environment — I need, we all need, to have everybody's voice heard," Reiner said. "If a democracy is to work properly, we must not, we dare not, have any voice suppressed."

Schwarzenegger defended the initiative this week on a San Diego radio program, saying the state's public employee unions have too much influence over the legislature, which is controlled by Democrats.

"It is wrong for the politicians to go and ask the union bosses whether to make a move or not," the governor said."