Actor Arnold Schwarzenegger (L) jokes with host Jay Leno during taping of 'The Tonight Show' in Burbank, Calif., Wednesday, Aug. 6, 2003. Schwarzenegger announced that he would run for governor of California in the recall election scheduled for Oct. 7. [AP]

Widely expected to bow out of the governor's race and endorse former Los Angeles Mayor Richard Riordan in the recall election, Republican Schwarzenegger instead declared himself ready to lead the troubled state even though he has never held a single public office.

The news sent shock waves through the California Democratic Party which has vivid memories of another actor who quit the stage for Republican politics, Ronald Reagan, a two-term governor and two-term president.

Appearing on NBC's "The Tonight Show with Jay Leno," Schwarzenegger said his message to politicians of both parties was: "You do your job and you do it well or else you're out and it's hasta la vista, baby" -- a line from the "Terminator" movie series.

Many in the audience collectively gasped and burst into applause when he announced his decision.

Schwarzenegger shrugged off the prospect of negative campaigning by his opponents, saying, "I know they're going to throw everything at me, (that) I have no experience, (that) I'm a womanizer and a terrible guy. You all know that Gray Davis knows how to run a dirty campaign better than anyone but he doesn't know how to run a state. I will promise you when I go up to Sacramento, I will pump Sacramento up."

He added that California's politicians are "failing the people, and the man who is failing the people more than anyone is Gray Davis. He is failing them terribly. and this is why he needs to be recalled, and this is why I'm going to run for governor.

In an impromptu news conference with reporters backstage of the Leno show after his appearance, Schwarzenegger said, "I'm a Republican but I will run as a Californian to straighten out California. ... I have the energy, I have the intelligence and I have the know-how."

Mervin Field, who has been conducting polls in California since 1947, told Reuters that the decision clarifies a complicated political race.

"The structure of the battle is more clear-cut, you're going to have on one hand Schwarzenegger, a movie star who has got a political sense; he is going to make a run for it but it is going to be a tough battle."

"On the other hand Davis is the kind of guy that if it gets down to one candidate he has to run against, this is the kind of terrain that Davis has won on before. ... It's going to be a fairly bloody campaign."

READY FOR THEIR CLOSE-UPS

The Austrian-born former bodybuilder was the second celebrity of the day -- columnist Arianna Huffington being the first -- to announce a campaign against Davis who is in court to delay the Oct. 7 recall until next March.

The Democrat, unpopular because of his handling of the state economy, argues that outdated California voting machines will not be able to handle the scores of candidates vying to get on the two-part ballot.

Voters will be asked whether Davis, reelected to office only last November, should be recalled and then asked who should succeed him. More than 400 people have expressed interest in running although fewer than 10 have so far completed the forms which are due back on Saturday.

Earlier in the day, outspoken Athens-born Huffington said she would run as an independent for governor of California, competing against a potpourri of challengers that include porn publisher Larry Flynt, running as "a smut peddler who cares."

The race was likened to a carnival on Wednesday by the state's senior senator, Dianne Feinstein, who said she wasn't a candidate because she thought the recall wrong and that Davis deserved a chance to finish his second term.

Huffington, a one-time conservative turned political Populist, blasted the Republicans for forcing the recall, saying it was led "by an embittered cult of right-wing radicals who have overdosed on tax cut Kool-Aid. These people have one true religion: tax cuts; and they follow one Golden Rule: those with the gold make the rules."

She added that she decided to run because it was "morally imperative that we make sure that the California Republican Party is not able to use the recall to hijack the state."