Porn star thumps chest, dares Arnold

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Los Angeles: Porn star Mary Carey, who gained worldwide fame running for California governor in 2003, on Thursday set out to do what she could not three years ago - beat Arnold Schwarzenegger.

"I think I'm more serious now," Carey said on Wednesday as she arrived at a Los Angeles County elections office to launch her 2006 gubernatorial campaign.

"As you can see I'm dressed more seriously. I've got brown in my hair because brunettes are taken more seriously," she added.

The star of Boobsville Sorority Girls, and Cheerleader School said her campaign has already hit a snag because she has collected only about 40 of the 164,000 signatures required to register as an independent candidate.

Undaunted, Carey said she would enter the race as a write-in candidate and barnstorm across California colleges in a "shock the vote" tour aimed at her core constituency: young men.

Carey, who announced in December that she had lost weight, replaced her teeth and acquired new, size 36-D breasts, drew a throng of photographers and gawkers as she entered the building, inspiring one man to call out: "Mary, you're thinner!"

The porn star responded: "Thank you. Smoking cigarettes and quitting birth control."

Carey said a San Diego college student is serving as her campaign manager and she was accompanied by her publicity man and husband-to-be, Harry Shevlin. Asked by a photographer if Shevlin was being paid, she answered: "Um, in sex."

Carey said she believes porn and politics go together, inspiring her slogan: "Finally, a politician you want to be screwed by" and is determined to win.

"I've actually been sober for five days now," she said, adding that she intends to give up alcohol until election day in November to focus her energies on the campaign.

Carey's platform includes getting the FBI to "leave porn stars alone" and concentrate on the war with Iraq and said that if elected she, like Schwarzenegger, would put her film career on hold while she served as governor.

"Although my movies only take a day or two to shoot, so I could probably do them on weekends," she said.