Though he hoped no one would muddy his message on the campaign's final weekend, Schwarzenegger faced tenacious resistance from nurses, teachers and firefighters. They trailed him for much of the day aboard a bus they dubbed "The Truth Squad."
Though the bus skipped Riverside, protesters who were dispatched there hoisted signs a block from where McCain and Schwarzenegger were speaking and blasted through loudspeakers the song "Why Can't We Be Friends?"
After the faceoff in San Diego, the atmosphere aboard "The Truth Squad" was giddy. Rose Ann DeMoro, executive director of the California Nurses Assn., grabbed the microphone usually used by tour guides and excitedly recounted the confrontation with Schwarzenegger's staff at the hangar.
"Their entire operation was off its game!" she said. "We are so much better than them at this. They did not know what to do with us."
"I thought it was kind of fun," Beatty said with a mischievous grin, taking the microphone from DeMoro. "In terms of what you call political street theater, I think we got our message across by being respectful. I think it was slightly disrespectful on their part to keep us standing out in the sun.... "
