Hopefuls in California on Different Paths

Hopefuls in California on Different Paths, Both are former corporate chief executives, with personal fortunes, impressive résumés and famous friends. Hopefuls in California on Different Paths, Both are conservatives who say that they have lived the American dream and fear for its future. And both are Bay Area women, with their eyes and ambitions firmly fixed on a change of address.

Hopefuls in California on Different Paths, the Republican candidates for California governor and United States senator, Meg Whitman and Carly Fiorina, are charging into the general election with very different political personas and campaign strategies.

Ms. Whitman, a billionaire who has poured more than $100 million of her own fortune into her campaign, has defined herself as an on-message spokeswoman for what she calls a three-part plan to fix California. Ms. Fiorina, meanwhile, has emerged as a fiery, combative saleswoman for this year’s brand of anti-incumbent anger.


Polls show both races are essentially dead heats. But Ms. Whitman, the former chief executive of eBay who breezed to the Republican nomination for governor, has steadily moved toward the center in her race against the Democrat Jerry Brown, experts say, voicing her support for abortion rights and refusing to back a ballot measure that would suspend California’s landmark environmental law, AB 32.