Schwarzenegger wins in a California landslide

SAN FRANCISCO, Nov 8: California Gov Arnold Schwarzenegger won re-election by a landslide after distancing himself from fellow Republican President George W Bush and taking a moderate stance.

The former Hollywood star first elected three years ago in an unprecedented recall vote yesterday, led his Democratic opponent, State Treasurer Phil Angelides, by 18 points with more than two thirds of the votes counted.

''What a fantastic evening; I love doing sequels,'' Schwarzenegger told supporters in Beverly Hills. ''But this without any doubt is my favorite sequel.'' The star of the 'Terminator'' films scrapped a confrontational style that served him well as a champion bodybuilder and in movies but led to a complete defeat in a special initiative election last year.

A humbled Schwarzenegger, 59, turned on his charm, no longer taunted Democratic legislators as ''girlie men'' and backed a series of bipartisan laws, including reducing the state's greenhouse gas emissions.

Schwarzenegger also distanced himself from Bush, avoiding him during recent California visits and criticizing the White House on issues such as global warming.

''Schwarzenegger was successful in embracing a more moderate agenda that affected people's lives in a positive way,' former Gov Gray Davis, whom Schwarzenegger ousted three years ago, told Reuters. ''The Republicans in Washington tuned out that agenda and are paying the price for that tonight.'' The moderate approach worked in a state where 42 per cent of the 15.8 million registered voters are Democrats, compared to 34 per cent Republicans. It also worked at home, where the Austrian-born politician is married to Democrat Maria Shriver, niece of former Democratic President John F Kennedy.

Angelides, a liberal Democrat and former real estate developer, struggled throughout the campaign and even the state's leading liberal newspapers backed his opponent.

Schwarzenegger dedicated much of his campaigning not to countering Angelides but to rallying support for more than 37 billion dollar in bonds to fund infrastructure including roads, housing and schools. Those measures also appeared poised to pass.

While backing new bond spending, Californians rejected new levies, voting down measures to boost raise cigarette taxes or to tax oil producers to fund alternative energy development.

Also in California, Democrat Jerry Brown, 68, the man who held Schwarzenegger's job in Sacramento from 1975-83, won the race to become the attorney general of the nation's most populous state.

Once derided as ''Governor Moonbeam,'' Brown became a national political figure by running for president three times and has served for the past eight years as Oakland's mayor.

REUTERS