Former eBay CEO Meg Whitman, who's got her eye on the governor's mansion in California, has formed a so-called exploratory committee and issued a statement saying, "California faces challenges unlike any other time in its history - a weak and faltering economy, massive job losses, and an exploding state budget deficit. California is better than this, and I refuse to stand by and watch it fail."

Whitman, like the incumbent Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, who's met his term limit, is a Republican and said in a speech last month that "If California were a business, we'd be out of business." Besides a handful of other GOP hopefuls, California's attorney general, and ex-governor, Jerry Brown, a Democrat, also wants to be governor. The election won't be until November of 2010.