Former eBay chief executive Meg Whitman officially submitted her bid to explore a run for governor.
The move by the billionaire businesswoman sets up what's expected to be an expensive, 17-month auction between herself and Insurance Commissioner Steve Poizner in the 2010 Republican primary.
"California faces challenges unlike any other time in its history -- a weak and faltering economy, massive job losses, and an exploding state budget deficit. California is better than this, and I refuse to stand by and watch it fail," Whitman said in a prepared statement, announcing her exploration of a run for governor. "Now is the time for people across the state to join in a cause for change, excellence and a new California."
Whitman, 52, first stepped onto the political stage in last year's presidential campaign, initially as a fundraiser to GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney, then as a senior adviser to Republican nominee John McCain.
McCain, at one point, called Whitman one of the "three wisest people" he knew, handing her a speech at the Republican National Convention in St. Paul, Minn.
But Whitman's political unveiling hasn't been without its stumbles.
She only registered as a Republican voter in 2007 -- in order to support Romney in the primary -- and news reports have since surfaced that she did not vote in half the elections since 2002.
Meanwhile, Whitman is waging a court battle to claim rights to website domain names like meg2010.com and whitmanforgovernor.com, after a websquatter seized them first, an awkward beginning for a woman likely to campaign on her high-tech experience.
Whitman was at the helm of eBay from 1998 to 2008, turning the Internet giant from "start up to a grown up," as she is fond of saying.
The company blossomed from a 30-person operation into a 15,000 employee, $8 billion in revenue Internet juggernaut. Along the way, she became vastly wealthy as well, with an estimated fortune of $1.4 billion, according to Forbes magazine in 2007.
That money will be needed to make a name for herself in California, where 67 percent of voters said they had no opinion of her, according to a Field Poll last November.
The Republican primary for governor is wide open, according to that same poll.
She's likely to face Poizner, a Silicon Valley veteran himself, who sold a company for $1 billion in 2000. Poizner has been consolidating institutional support for more than a year and touts the backing of more than 70 percent of the state's Republican lawmakers.
A third candidate, Tom Campbell, a former congressman, U.S. Senate candidate and one-time state budget director, is also in the race, though he can't match the financial firepower of the other two candidates.
All three fashion themselves, to some extent, as moderates -- socially more liberal and fiscally more conservative.
But Whitman, in particular, still hasn't staked out positions on many of the state's top issues, most notably how to balance the state's budget. She did come out in favor of Proposition 8, the measure to ban gay marriage, shortly before last fall's election.
The Democratic field is expected to be crowded, as well.
Lt. Gov. John Garamendi and San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom are exploring runs. Attorney General Jerry Brown, an ex-governor himself, is widely expected to jump into the race.
If she runs, U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein would be a front-runner in the race.
Among the other potential candidates are Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, former state Controller Steve Westly, and Superintendent of Public Instruction Jack O'Connell.
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