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Los Angeles (CNN) - Steve Poizner officially threw his hat into the ring Monday in the race to be California's next governor. The Republican, who is currently the state's insurance commissioner, filed papers in Santa Clara declaring his candidacy.
"I want to deploy a series of smart, common sense, conservative solutions that will get this great state back on track," Poizer said the written statement announcing his candidacy. "My campaign is about cutting taxes across-the-board to bring jobs back to California."
Poizner is running against another former Silicon Valley executive, ex-eBay CEO Meg Whitman. Poizner sold his Internet start-up company SnapTrak to technology and communications behemoth Qualcomm prior to entering politics.
Whitman, who announced her candidacy for governor six months ago, has opened up a substantial lead over Poizner. A Field Poll conducted January 5-17 found Whitman leading Poizner by twenty-eight points, 45% to 17%, with 38% of likely voters in the GOP primary undecided.
Democrat Edmund G. "Jerry" Brown is expected to announce Tuesday that he's also launching a gubernatorial bid. Brown previously served two terms as the state's governor and is now California's attorney general.
Los Angeles (CNN) - It's another day, another controversial Web ad from California Republican Senate candidate Carly Fiorina.
Fiorina, who hopes to unseat Sen. Barbara Boxer this fall if she can emerge from a tight three-way Republican primary, has started running a new Web ad that uses the face of newly-elected Sen. Scott Brown. In the ad, a caption accompanying Brown's image reads: "Thank You Massachusetts. Now on to California. Join the Path to Victory."
But Fiorina's GOP rivals - former Rep. Tom Campbell and Assemblyman Chuck DeVore - say the ad falsely implies that Brown has endorsed Fiorina.
Campbell new media consultant Patrick Ruffini claimed that Fiorina is exploiting Brown, who became a hero to Republicans when he defeated Democrat Martha Coakley in a special election in January. "I don't know if she's claiming an endorsement, but that's up there in the Scott Brown exploitation sweepstakes," Ruffini tweeted on Saturday.
Joshua Trevino, communications director for DeVore, called the ad "deceptive and misleading".
Fiorina spokeswoman Julie Soderlund brushed off the charges and told CNN that "the ad in no way implies an endorsement." FULL POST
LOS ANGELES (CNN) – Former eBay CEO Meg Whitman will officially declare her candidacy for governor of California on Tuesday at an event in Fullerton, California.
Whitman, the 53-year-old former CEO of eBay, will become a leading GOP candidate to succeed current Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger in 2010, when he is forced to retire due to term limits. Ms. Whitman, who stepped down as CEO of eBay in March of 2008, has never held elected public office.
California has been beset by a fiscal crisis and massive budget deficits for nearly a year. Whitman advocates cutting the state's spending and reducing the state's workforce.
(CNN) – Meg Whitman, a Republican candidate for governor in California, is not a fan of the new budget just passed by the state’s legislature.
The budget “is not the solution,” Whitman said in a statement Thursday. “Instead of respecting taxpayers and championing job creation, Sacramento is increasing taxes on the middle class. The proposed budget will kill jobs, hurt families and make future deficits even worse."
Whitman, the former President and CEO of eBay, also opposed the nearly $800 billion stimulus bill recently passed by Congress and signed into law by the President.
If successful in her gubernatorial bid, Whitman will succeed fellow Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who praised the California legislature’s passage of the state’s budget.
BEND, Oregon (CNN) - As they say in real estate, location, location, location. Sometimes where a candidate stumps is more telling than what they say on the stump. Today, Sen. Barack Obama is in Oregon, thousands of miles from the next primary state, West Virginia.
Campaigning in Bend, Oregon, Obama visited PV Powered, a company that produces photovoltaic cells a key component in solar energy systems. Not surprisingly Obama spoke about "investments in clean energy" and creating green jobs. The candidate, during a press availability this morning, even used a microphone he touted to reporters as partially solar powered.
Green plays well in Oregon, markedly less so in places like Kentucky and West Virginia, two other upcoming primary states where the coal industry provides thousands of jobs - at least 40,000 in West Virginia alone, and more than 15,000 in Kentucky.
The mayor of Beckley, West Virginia, Emmett Pugh, has endorsed Sen. Barack Obama. Pugh puts it plainly, “coal is still a very powerful force in West Virginia.”
Three days from now, West Virginians will cast votes in their state primary and polls show Sen. Hillary Clinton holds a massive lead over Obama - 66 percent to 23 percent, according to a survey released Friday from the American Research Group.
Obama hasn’t entirely given up on Coal Country. He plans to campaign in both West Virginia and Kentucky on Monday.