Inside the diner, a smiling Schwarzenegger moved through the crowd of GOP boosters, shaking hands and handing out voter guides. A protester briefly disrupted the event by shouting out his objection to the measure that would stiffen teacher-tenure requirements. Police quickly escorted him outside.
In San Ramon, an affluent Bay Area suburb, Schwarzenegger spent about 30 minutes working his way through about 100 GOP activists at the Hopyard Ale House. The entrance was carefully guarded by the governor's aides to keep out the uninvited.
Schwarzenegger handed out ballot pamphlets, autographing several. He also posed for photos and urged everyone to make a hard push to get supportive voters to the polls today.
Bags were clearly visible under the governor's eyes as he said: "We're working very hard. We started at 6 in the morning and we're going to go all the way until 11 at night. And I love it. You know why I love it? It's because we're fighting for the future of California."
Across the state, labor unions rallied once again to rev up their members, fighting what they termed Schwarzenegger's effort to destroy their political power.
In Oakland, actor-director Rob Reiner joined the union rank and file at a phone bank. In the Silicon Valley, teachers demonstrated against Schwarzenegger at a mall. In Burbank, union volunteers gathered at a union hall to kick off canvassing in the San Fernando Valley.
There the governor's critics hammered Schwarzenegger in remarks to 200 volunteers, many of them waving "No on 75" signs and wearing white T-shirts with stenciled photos of a nurse, teacher and firefighter.
"When you see the governor on the run in a bus, afraid to debate, you know you've done something right," Ludlow told the crowd, referring to Schwarzenegger's refusal during the campaign to share a stage with his opponents.
Democrats were nervously watching the weather in their Los Angeles stronghold, fearing that rain could depress the turnout of party loyalists. "We've been buying up ponchos left and right and dropping them off at all of our staging areas," said Courtni Pugh, the Los Angeles County campaign manager for labor's anti-Schwarzenegger coalition.
Election officials forecast a voter turnout of 42%, a respectable number for an odd-numbered year. Turnout in California was 76% in the hard-fought 2004 presidential election race, 61% in the 2003 recall and 51% in the 2002 governor's contest.
Times staff writers Michael Finnegan, Dan Morain, Jean O. Pasco, Jordan Rau and Susannah Rosenblatt contributed to this report.
