Los Angeles ? Republican recall candidates Arnold Schwarzenegger and Peter Ueberroth laid out economic recovery outlines for California on Wednesday as a federal judge rejected an effort to delay the Oct. 7 vote because of potential problems with punch-card voting machines.

After days of circus atmosphere around the recall, the campaigns began to take a traditional tone with major candidates having carefully staged events to position themselves before voters.

Schwarzenegger, the action star, surrounded himself executive-style with big-name advisers to outline his economic plans. Ueberroth, the former baseball commissioner and key organizer of the successful 1984 Olympics, held a lean, straightforward news conference to offer his proposal.

Democratic Gov. Gray Davis, who went on the offensive Tuesday with a speech blasting the recall as a Republican power grab, kept up the campaign to keep his job at a town hall-style meeting Wednesday night before about 50 people at Raleigh Studios in Hollywood.

“If someone wants to replace me, let’s see a plan of how they want to manage the state, not just a couple sound bites,” he said at one point.

A federal judge in Los Angeles kept the recall on schedule by turning down arguments by American Civil Liberties Union lawyers that it should be delayed until March so that six counties can complete the replacement of old punch-card machines with more reliable modern systems.

“Because an election reflects a unique moment in time, the court is skeptical that an election held months after its scheduled date can in any sense be said to be the same election,” said U.S. District Court Judge Stephen Wilson.

In his proposal, Schwarzenegger said he did not want to raise taxes and would identify areas to cut after a special audit of the state’s books “to find out how bad the situation really is.”