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« on: October 31, 2008, 08:21:02 PM »
COLUMBUS, Ohio (AFP) — Muscleman-turned-actor-turned-politician Arnold Schwarzenegger called on Barack Obama to beef up his his policies -- and his body -- at a high-voltage campaign rally for Republican John McCain Friday.
Schwarzenegger, the Hollywood action hero who is now the Republican governor of California, delighted a crowd of several thousand at a McCain campaign event in Ohio by ridiculing both Obama's policies and his slender physique.
The Austrian-born former Mr Universe has hosted a bodybuilding tournament in Columbus for several years, and opened his address by inviting Obama to participate in the next event.
"Every year in March I come here to organize the Arnold Classic, which is all about building the body and pumping," Schwarzenegger said.
"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.
"And then we're going to make him do some biceps curls to beef up those scrawny little arms. But if he could only do something about putting some meat on his ideas.
"Senator McCain on the other hand is built like a rock. His character and his views are solid."
McCain and Schwarzenegger rolled into the Nationwide Arena Hockey Stadium together on the Republican candidate's "Straight Talk Express", the campaign bus that has ferried him on a two-day blitz of this battleground state.
While McCain received loud cheers, it was Schwarzenegger who provided some much-needed glamor and the biggest cheers with a searing attack on Obama's economic policies. He meanwhile painted former Vietnam War prisoner and navy pilot McCain as a "real-life American hero."
"John McCain's character has been tested as no other presidential candidate in the history of this nation," Schwarzenegger said. "He has spent five and a half years as a prisoner of war. He has been tested under torture, under temptation, under deprivation, under isolation.
"He has proven what kind of a man he is. We don't have to wonder if he's ready to lead. We don't have to wonder is he ready to be president of the United States. John McCain has served his country longer in a POW camp than his opponent has served in the United State Senate."
Ohio is a must-win state for McCain, 72, who is trailing Obama in a clutch of pivotal battlegrounds won by outgoing President George W. Bush in 2004.
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