This is a highly experienced, well educated, supremely connected leader. She understands international relations that impact California. You may not have liked what she did as Secretary of State but remember she was given instructions to execute whether she liked them or not.

I don’t necessarily “dislike” Rice. What I don’t know about her is basically anything. Her public persona is totally one of a highly placed member of the Bush Administration and I don’t hold W’s failures against her. OTOH, I believe she’s pro-choice (I know, it’s a plus for CA) and she was one of the worst SoS in my memory (hold the “old” jokes). At the end of the day, I have no Idea what she stands for or how she would fare in outright and open warfare with the CA Dems. I consider her to be pretty much a blank slate.

I know even less about Meg Whitman, except that I would guess – and I’m absolutely guessing – that she’d probably be better in an alley fight than Rice, but I wouldn’t want to argue the point.

With respect to your post below, I would argue that she’s not all that experienced as an executive. She absolutely sucked as SoS and her only redeeming characteristic was that she wasn’t Colin Powell. The establishment at State ran roughshod over her and I don’t consider that to be a good sign. As far as understanding international relations, who cares? California’s problems can’t be solved by good international relations. They can only be solved by a mean, nasty politician who’s willing to shut the damn state down to fix it.

Also, I’m not so sure that her tenure with Bush wouldn’t just kill her in CA.