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Jennifer Garner helps build support for McNerney
A day after first lady Laura Bush extolled Republican Rep. Richard Pombo's environmental record, TV star Garner spoke in downtown Pleasanton to supporters of Jerry McNerney, Pombo's Democratic challenger for the state's 11th Congressional District seat. McNerney's supporters, rallied by the Defenders of Wildlife Action Fund, then canvassed the area in the final campaign weekend before Tuesday's election.
"Our fight to unseat Richard Pombo is a fight for the beauty and natural heritage of California, my new home," Garner said. "It's a fight for the beauty of West Virginia where I grew up. It is a fight for the ecological preservation of the United States. It's a fight for the world I want my little girl to inherit."
The latest registration numbers show nearly equal numbers of Democrats and Republicans in Pleasanton. Getting a large turnout of voters in the area is critical for both parties come Election Day. Rodger Schlickeisen, president of the action fund, called the District 11 election "the most important race in the House of Representatives" this year.
In the early afternoon, Schwarzenegger made the second of three planned campaign stops around the state at local Republican Party headquarters. The governor briefly addressed about 50 phone bank volunteers crammed around three tables and a couple dozen other supporters in a hot and stuffy second-floor office. He praised their efforts and the nearly 70,000 calls made out of that office to ask people to vote.
"It's all about getting the people out to vote and to vote not only for me but also to vote for the initiatives, to vote for Proposition 1A through 1E," Schwarzenegger said.
Alluding to his immigrant past, Schwarzenegger called California the land of opportunity and said that is why so many people want to come to the state and why it's important to improve infrastructure.
Conspicuously absent at the governor's campaign stop was Pombo, R-Tracy. Aside from sweeping comments to vote for his infrastructure initiatives, Schwarzenegger did not mention any Republican candidates by name.
Pombo, chairman of the House Resources Committee, was mentioned by name frequently earlier in the day, however, as a few hundred McNerney supporters gathered to hear Garner speak while a scattering of Pombo backers looked on.
Having flown up from Los Angeles that morning, Garner, who starred in the ABC series "Alias," posed for photographs with fans before and after her four-minute speech until she was whisked away. Her husband, Ben Affleck, the star of such movies as "Pearl Harbor" and "Armageddon," did not make the trip because he was ill, Garner explained.
"We were supposed to be up here together, but Ben has a migraine and he's flat on his back," Garner said. "That's what six years of George Bush and a Republican Congress will do to you."
Garner lambasted Pombo's environmental record, saying that he has exchanged environmental protection for political contributions from oil companies.
Pombo campaign spokesman Brian Kennedy said that Garner and other environmentalists have misled voters and instead focused on "character assassination."
"We have this so-called environmental community that has forgotten about the environment and turned into a wholly owned subsidiary of the Democratic Party in Washington," Kennedy said.