Arnie mocks Obama's physique and backs McCain

Arnold Schwarzenegger has ridiculed Barack Obama for what he described as the candidate's skinny physique and scrawny policies. At a raucous rally in Columbus, Ohio, for the Republican candidate John McCain, the California governor delighted the partial audience with a sustained attack on the Democratic challenger. "Every year in March I come here to organise the Arnold Classic, which is all about building the body and pumping," he told the crowd. "That's why I want to invite Senator Obama because he needs to do something about those skinny legs. I'm going to make him do some squats." Then to cheers from the audience he attacked the Illinois senator's experience. "John McCain has served his country longer in a Prisoner of War camp than his opponent has served in the United State Senate." The Vietnam veteran needs to win Ohio's 21 electoral college votes, so he has been on a two-day blitz of the Midwest state, where the economic slowdown has hit particularly hard. But poll averages still put him trailing Barack Obama by five points here. After the event many McCain supporters blamed a liberal media conspiracy for artificially inflating Obama's poll figures. Jill Helger, dressed as Sarah Palin for a Halloween fancy dress party, told us: "You can tell just by talking to people in Ohio that there's a lot more support for McCain than the newspapers make out." Another supporter, Liz Clothier, who attended a rally with George W Bush and Schwarzenegger on the Friday before the election in 2004, claimed Obama was a 'socialist' who would expand government spending and tax the middle class. "We don't need that in a recession. We don't need that ever," she said. Later today McCain will campaign in two states crucial to his strategy, Virginia and Pennsylvania, with just three days remaining to election day.

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ITN | November 1, 2008

Tags:. .experience. .five. .challenger. .bush. .organise