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Former eBay CEO Meg Whitman will officially declare her candidacy for governor of California on Tuesday at an event in Fullerton, California.

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.

Meg Whitman said Thursday that California's new budget is not the solution to the state's fiscal challenges.

(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.