As Whitman and Brown dance toward the political center, they risk alienating their bases

By Ken McLaughlin and Steve Harmon Bay Area News Group Posted: 08/10/2010 04:02:41 PM PDT

When Meg Whitman went on the air last week with two red-meat-conservative talk show hosts, they mercilessly grilled her on what they characterized as inexcusable shifts on illegal immigration and the state's landmark global warming bill.

The drubbing was so bad that many listeners of "The John & Ken Show" pronounced that they'd never vote for such a namby-pamby candidate.

Less than three months before the general election, the Republican Whitman is experiencing the perils of what nearly every major party candidate for California governor must endure during the fall campaign: the risks associated with dancing toward the political center.

It's a necessary gamble in a state where about one-third of voters say they are "middle-of-the-road" and one in five people decline to state a political allegiance when they register to vote, political experts say.

Still, as Whitman and -- to a lesser extent her Democratic opponent, Jerry Brown -- woo voters in the middle, they are discovering just how far they can go to grab as much from the center before they start alienating their more partisan bases.

To continue reading click here

Posted by Kathy Vega