After launching an exploratory committee almost eight months ago, former eBay Inc. chief executive officer Meg Whitman officially declared her candidacy for California governor in downtown Fullerton Tuesday.

A crowd of supporters from across Orange County gathered under the hot sun to hear Whitman make her announcement and listen to her explain why she decided to run.

"I refuse to accept that California cannot be better than it is. I refuse to let California fail. The time has come for all of us to take a stand, to make an all out effort to reclaim the California we love," she said just before making an official commitment to run.

In her speech Whitman blamed the state's fiscal problems on high taxes, excessive regulation and too much spending.

She said she wants to improve the economy by providing targeted tax relief to California businesses, especially those in the manufacturing industry, and she promised to create 2 million new jobs by 2015.

Whitman told the crowd she plans to suspend some of the state's environmental regulations. She described them as "job killers" and "completely outrageous" and said they are driving businesses to locate outside of California.

To improve education, she wants to remove the state cap on charter schools to provide students with more options and allow more local control over education funds.

She reiterated one of her common talking points in the speech. If elected governor, she said, she will eliminate 40,000 state jobs and stop automatic pay raises.

Both of her opponents have accused Whitman of making empty promises and not putting forward a specific plan for how to achieve her goals.

Shortly after her speech, one of Whitman's opponents for the GOP nomination, former Rep. Tom Campbell emailed a press release criticizing Whitman for a lack of specifics.

"Today, it is disappointing that more than four months later, and after a budget deal has been reached, Meg Whitman has still not announced specific spending cuts, except her proposal to fire state employees, which would save only a small fraction of what's needed to close the budget gap," he wrote.

Last week another rival for the nomination, state Insurance Commissioner Steve Poizner, chimed a similar tone. He told Neon Tommy, "Her plan isn't specific. She says she's going to cut taxes but where is she going to cut taxes? What taxes is she going to cut?"

Whitman's critics have questioned her experience, arguing that she has never held an elected office before. They've also gone after her for only recently registering as a Republican. Until 2007 she had declined to register with a specfic party.

Nonetheless, Whitman is considered to have a good shot at winning the GOP nomination. She has deep pockets. She just contributed $19 million to her own campaign and $250,000 to Republican voter registration efforts. Whitman has also led or been just behind her two rivals in polls conducted this year.

If Whitman wins, it will be the first time Republicans have nominated a woman to run for governor in California.

The Republican gubernatorial primary is in June 2010.

Annenberg Radio News host Pete Griffin spoke with political analyst and director of the Jesse M. Unruh Institute of Politics at USC about Whitman's chances of winning the republican nomination and what she needs to do between now and the primary next June.

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