Oprah_ A Biography - Kitty Kelley [231]
Weeks before he announced his candidacy he had given an interview to Esquire comparing himself to a beautiful woman whose looks cause people to underestimate her intelligence:
When you see a blonde with great tits and a great ass, you say to yourself, hey, she must be stupid or must have nothing else to offer.… But then again there is the one that is as smart as her breasts look, great as her face looks, beautiful as her whole body looks, gorgeous, you know, so people are shocked.
His crude and galloping arrogance sparked Molly Ivins to write, “Is it just me, or doesn’t he look like a condom filled with walnuts?”
Oprah promoted her new season’s premiere, on September 15, 2003, as “my exclusive with Arnold and Maria—the campaign, the rumors, their first interview together, ever!” She opened with Maria Shriver, who was familiar to Oprah’s viewers from her past appearances, from the many references Oprah made to their friendship, and from the pages she devoted to Maria on her website. They began with girlfriend memories of working together in Baltimore, and Oprah showed pictures of herself at Maria’s wedding at the Kennedy compound in Hyannisport. Then she asked about her husband’s reputation as a womanizer.
“I know the man I’m married to,” said Maria. “I’ve been with him for twenty-six years. I make up my mind on him based on him. Not based on what people say.”
“Do you think Kennedy women are bred to look the other way when it comes to marital infidelity?”
“That ticks me off. I have not been quote ‘bred’ to look the other way. I accept him with all his strengths and all his weaknesses. I’m not perfect either.”
Oprah brought up the stories depicting Arnold as a misogynist, and Maria said he was “the exact opposite” of a woman-hater. “He makes me coffee every morning, tells me I’m wonderful, and has been supportive of my career.”
Arnold joined his wife in the next segment. Sitting down, he reached over and grabbed Maria’s hand. “This woman here has been the most incredible friend, the most incredible wife and mother,” he said. Oprah beamed happily, and her studio audience clapped. “They love celebrities,” she said later, knowing her show was Celebrity Central for her viewers.
She asked Schwarzenegger about his infamous Oui interview, but he said he didn’t remember it. “The idea [then] was to say things that were so over the top you could get headlines.”
“But did you remember the parties, Arnold?”
“I really don’t. These were the times I was saying things like ‘a pump is better than coming.’ ”
Maria’s hand shot to his face, clamping his mouth shut. “My mother is watching this show. My God!”
The New York Times later chided Oprah for doing such “a big favor” for Schwarzenegger by having him on her show. Citing the federal equal-time rule, the newspaper said, “Now she needs to do the voters a favor, and extend an invitation to the other top candidates in the California governor’s race.… [E]ven if Ms. Winfrey has the right to invite only one candidate, it is a poor use of her franchise.”
Oprah ignored the editorial advice because the Kennedy franchise was far more important to her. She also dismissed the Nation article titled “Governor Groper,” which accused her of caring more about “celebrity … than sisterhood,” saying that the people who really needed her platform were “women who think humiliating, insulting and harassing women is something worth talking about.” Schwarzenegger won the recall election in 2003 and was reelected in 2006. Oprah contributed $5,000 to his campaign that year, the only political contribution she made.
Having flexed her muscle, she now became a political celebrity herself, and members of the Reform Party set up a website to entice her to run for president, while the documentary filmmaker Michael Moore started an online petition:
We, the undersigned, call on you to declare yourself a candidate for the Presidency of the United States of America. We want to hear your ideas on how to straighten this country out and we think you can force the