At times during the recall race, it seemed like California’s celebrity-obsessed culture had become a caricature of itself. Gary Coleman, the diminutive former child actor, gamely but lamely debated political issues. Larry Flynt, king of the Hustler porn empire, called himself “a smut peddler who cares.” And Schwarzenegger — a former Mr. Universe turned muscular movie star and businessman — announced his entry into the recall circus on The Tonight Show. And when Election Day came October 7, Californians rose in record numbers and — apparently blaming Governor Gray Davis for the state’s $8 billion deficit — hurled him from office. In his place, Ahhhnold, the pro-choice Republican, rode a wave of popular support to victory. His challengers littered the political landscape like the body count in Commando.

Sadly, the Terminator’s victory victimized more than the 135 goofs, gadflies and career politicians who ran against him. Because of credible allegations about Schwarzenegger’s character, and their outright dismissal by many, the real losers in the election may be victims of sexual assault, and anyone who’s ever believed that political leaders should uphold moral standards. According to well-sourced reports in the Los Angeles Times, Schwarzenegger has a history of sexually assaulting women. But the majority of voters either ignored or dismissed the allegations outright. Sixteen women gave testimony in the articles — 11 were willing to be named. The alleged incidents took place in the 80s, 90s and as recently as 2000. They included a woman who said Schwarzenegger slipped his hand up her skirt and grabbed her right buttock, and several who said he grabbed their breasts or made sexual comments to them that are obscene to the point of deviance. Many of the encounters took place in front of other people and left the women feeling violated and humiliated. (Their stories can be read at http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/recall/.)

The allegations against Schwarzenegger suggested a pattern of behavior that’s at least disconcerting, if not criminal. None of the women pressed charges or sued Schwarzenegger for the alleged acts, many because they were employed in Hollywood and feared retribution, according to the Times. The reports were sought out by the Times because rumors of Schwarzenegger’s behavior have swirled for years in Hollywood, and the paper thought it important to see if they were true. The allegations were independently verified, and the details were as disturbing as they were obscene.

One woman said she was harassed on several occasions while working in 1990 on the set of “Terminator 2: Judgment Day.” The woman told the Times that Schwarzenegger accosted her in an elevator, as she went to the pool of the hotel where the crew was staying. She was wearing a one-piece swimsuit, she said, which Schwarzenegger tried to remove several times. “At least three times — if not more — he would end up in the elevator with me, groping me and trying to take my robe off,” she told the L.A. Times. “He would pin me against the corner in the elevator” and try to take off her robe and pull down the straps of her suit, she said.

After the published reports of his habitual groping, Schwarzenegger both apologized for his misdeeds and dismissed the allegations as trash politics. According to the Associated Press, he said: “Yes, it is true that I was on rowdy movie sets and I have done things that were not right which I thought then was playful but now I recognize that I have offended people. And to those people that I have offended, I want to say to them I am deeply sorry about that and I apologize because this is not what I'm trying to do.”

Unlike Schwarzenegger, many of his supporters ignored the allegations because they came from the Los Angeles Times, a newspaper with a liberal reputation. In lieu of critical thinking they shot the messenger. The reports were all part of the grand liberal media conspiracy, they said. This is a heroic intellectual copout considering the Times is bound by libel laws, which say it’s legal to tell the truth and illegal to tarnish someone’s reputation with lies. It would be asinine for the Times to libel a man like Schwarzenegger. The actor could hire a platoon of attorneys to bring lawsuits against the paper if the reports were false.

Critics of the paper said the timing of the accusations brought against Schwarzenegger was politically motivated, which the paper denied; but this is beside the point. The point is that moral integrity demands holding one’s own political party accountable to the same moral standards opposing parties are held to.

This dismissal of credible sexual assault accusations sends a frightening message. Many knuckle-dragging Neanderthals already treat women as toys. They make jokes to each other in frat houses, locker rooms and boardrooms, but don’t openly share their chauvinistic attitudes because people usually take sexual assault allegations seriously. Giving Schwarzenegger a free pass on his alleged conduct must embolden men who have a low view of women. It must also be a blow to victims of sexual assault to see such allegations dismissed, and will likely cause even fewer reports of such already rarely reported offenses. At minimum, Schwarzenegger’s supporters could have shown concern about the credible allegations, and made a commitment to investigate them thoroughly after the election.

Also disturbing is the fact that five years ago the Republicans called for the impeachment of President Bill Clinton because of character issues, but now they backslapped Schwarzenegger as he waltzed into the governor’s office — even while admitting to unspecified indiscretions. To be sure, Clinton showed serious character flaws to anyone concerned about morality. In January 1998, he was president of the United States when he lied while under oath in a deposition about having a sexual affair with Monica Lewinsky. For some, the extramarital sexual liaisons in the White House were enough to have Clinton impeached. For others, it was the fact that he compromised justice and set a damaging precedent by lying under oath.

Clinton’s moral failures and the allegations against Schwarzenegger aren’t necessarily equal. Clinton was president of the United States when he lied under oath and engaged in a tawdry affair. Plus, the allegations against Clinton were proven to be true. Schwarzenegger wasn’t in office when the alleged incidents took place and he hasn’t specified which allegations are true. On the other hand, Clinton’s affair was consensual, while Schwarzenegger is being accused of rampant acts of sexual assault that left lasting emotional scars. The point isn’t to judge one man as better or worse, but to say that both men had character issues that should have been taken seriously.

The Republicans wanted Clinton’s head on a platter. But in the recall election, the California Republican party endorsed Schwarzenegger. I even spoke to Christians who said they were voting for Schwarzenegger because he had the best chance of winning — as if choosing the winner justified ignoring potential character flaws. These people said they didn’t want to “waste their vote” by voting for a candidate who’s worldview they agreed with — like a pro-life candidate with no known character problems. Since when did a vote only matter if it was cast for the winner? We have a representative government, and voters should support the candidate who best represents their worldview. Even if that candidate doesn’t win, at least people will know how well that candidate was supported.

The Republican’s about-face on character issues has two potential explanations, both of them troubling. One, the Clinton-Lewinsky scandal taught Americans that it really isn’t important for political leaders to practice morality. Therefore, Americans should no longer expect that their leaders would be men and women of character. Moral indiscretions are allowable, as long as they don’t interfere with the politician’s ability to make laws and inspire the citizenry.

The problem with this perspective is that it’s just plain wrong. Character does count, and if our leaders aren’t held to the highest standards then all society suffers. There’s really no such thing as “personal” morality, as if each individual exists in a vacuum. In reality, we’re social creatures who are influenced by each other’s examples. When we embrace a leader who has credible allegations of sexual assault against him, we lower the bar for our entire society because a leader sets the tone of acceptable behavior. In the case of Clinton, he demonstrated to America that it’s apparently OK to violate the integrity of our justice system if a person is under enough pressure. With Schwarzenegger’s election, people could conclude that few will care about sexual assault allegations when the accused has power, fame and money.

The other possible explanation for the Republicans’ dismissal of allegations about Schwarzenegger’s character is one that will turn an idealist into a cynic: that the GOP never cared about Clinton’s character either — that their foremost goal has always been power and that they only criticized Clinton’s morality because it was the most easily leveraged weakness to remove him from office. This would explain why the GOP could take a seemingly hypocritical stance of dismissing the allegations against Schwarzenegger.

The voters in California got what they wanted when they swept Schwarzenegger into office. But the cost was great for anyone who values morality. First Clinton and now this — it’s going to be hard for Republicans to demand personal integrity ever again.

Schwarzenegger Photo: Newscom