The 2008 presidential campaign is still months away from completion, but that’s no reason not to accelerate the level of speculation regarding the California 2010 election for governor. State Democrats have at least half a dozen viable potential candidates circling the field, who we will mock at another time. Republicans, on the other hand, seem to have been on a pretty clear glide path toward nominating Insurance Commissioner Steve Poizner.
But the Poizner nomination may not be a foregone conclusion after all. State Senator Tom McClintock has decided that his future lies in Congress, but should he not win his primary next month, another campaign for governor could be in the offing. Former Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina seems to have decided that her immediate future lies in President McCain’s Cabinet, but should Democrats win the White House, she may decide that statewide office holds some allure instead. And one prominent former Republican officeholder currently residing in the private sector has begun laying the groundwork for a campaign as well.
But the most intriguing potential challenger to Poizner might be former eBay CEO Meg Whitman. Whitman was a key player in Mitt Romney’s presidential campaign and has now moved into a senior position with McCain’s campaign as well. While not as public as Fiorina, Whitman’s fingerprints have been all over McCain’s current California trip. She organized a Silicon Valley event with both Cisco CEO John Chambers and Governor Schwarzenegger. More notably, she hosted the biggest fundraiser of McCain’s visit, bringing in more than $2.5 millioninto a campaign sorely needing a cash infusion.
Republicans spend far too much time speculating about prominent non-politicians as potential candidates. Former Major League baseball commissioner Peter Ueberroth was rumored to be a candidate for U.S. Senate for years, before briefly entering the governor’s race in the 2003 recall (a campaign that I managed.) The late Frank Wells of Disney was a perennial topic of conversation among party insiders as a candidate for governor before his death. And for every Schwarzenegger who actually enters the fray, there are legions of Mel Gibsons, Pat Sajaks, Kelsey Grammers and other entertainment figures who never make the leap.
Whitman isn’t encouraging speculation or taking a high public profile. But she is establishing relationships with donors and other party leaders, meeting quietly with campaign consultants, and gradually tiptoing onto the state’s political landscape. Poizner has been doing all the right things to clear the field for his candidacy, and the prospect of McClintock or another conservative challenger still looms. But don’t be surprised if Silicon Valley sends another one of its own onto the campaign trail.
May 22nd, 2008 at 12:00 am
I have to mention for reasons of historic accuracy that the closest the late Frank Wells (an acquaintance/friend of mine whom I first met in grammar school) looked at running for political office was for Governor as a Democrat against Pete Wilson.