The Little Brown Reader

He then lowered his voice an octave, and said: ``Let's start the engines.''

In dramatic fashion, a curtain rose to reveal a large bus plastered with Schwarzenegger's face and the campaign event's slogan, ``California Comeback Express.'' The actor jumped on the bus as it circled the floor in the indoor convention center and the crowd ran to greet him.

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At times, the rolling circus felt more like a tour promoting a movie than a candidate for governor. The bus carrying Schwarzenegger was named ``The Running Man,'' and featured satellite television and bunk beds. His entourage followed in a bus dubbed ``Total Recall.'' Some 200 reporters and photographers hailing from as far away as India, Japan and his native Austria followed in buses the campaign had dubbed ``Predator'' 1 through 4.

At the Orange County fairgrounds in Costa Mesa, Schwarzenegger ignored protesters and repeated his campaign promise to repeal increases in the state vehicle-license fee.

``I was 25 years in show business. In the movies, if I play a character and I didn't like something, you know what I did, I destroyed it. I wiped it out, I wiped it out.''

At that instant, a 3,600-pound wrecking ball was dropped 50 feet, crushing an older-model Oldsmobile on which the words ``Davis Car Tax'' had been spray-painted.