I definately have more respect for the guy now.
SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, in candor rare in a heated political season, said on Thursday he was disappointed that both President Bush and Sen. John Kerry had evaded questions in their final campaign debate.
"Both of them did not answer some of the questions, which I think is upsetting to me," Schwarzenegger told KGO radio in San Francisco. "I think it is much better to be straightforward with the people."
"I mean if you get a question about Iran and about the nuclear power and what you are going to do in the future with this nuclear power, and you don't even answer that question, I think it's a mistake, You know like Kerry did," he continued. "Bush did the same thing in some instances, not really get into it and answer it."
Schwarzenegger, a Republican, backs Bush but has shied away from campaigning for him in recent weeks. Instead he is urging people to vote against two California initiatives that would expand gambling.
Partisan politicians seldom give candid assessments of the debates as they hope to boost the public perception about their favored candidate. Yet Schwarzenegger is mindful that he serves a state with a Democratic majority very likely to back Kerry on Nov. 2.
"I think both of the candidates did extremely well yesterday," said Schwarzenegger, who has only been in office less than a year. "Because it was the third debate, they were much more with it, both of them."
Bush was not so good in the first debate, Schwarzenegger told KGO, but "now the whole thing is really swinging in his favor again."
Asked in a later radio interview why he was not campaigning with Bush, Schwarzenegger said he was asked to do so by the White House but was focusing on the problems of California.
"I don't want to travel around the country really," he told KABC in Los Angeles. "That's not what they people want me to do. They want me to stay here and do my job."
http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.j...toryID=6506959
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