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First, they climbed to the top of the corporate ladder in the tech industry. Now they're hoping to capture the same success—and votes—in California politics. Former Hewlett-Packard chief Carly Fiorina (above, right) and former eBay CEO Meg Whitman (above, left) are hitting the campaign trail.

Whitman is taking on former governor and current state Attorney General Jerry Brown for the office of governor this November, while Fiorina will challenge incumbent Senator Barbara Boxer for her Senate seat in 2010. Both candidates won heir primary battles to represent the GOP in their respective races.

'Buy It Now' Politics?
Whitman spent an estimated $71 million of her own fortune on the campaign, prompting some wags to make comparisons to the "Buy It Now" option that eBay offers to supersede a public auction. Whitman combated that claim by saying financial independence freed her campaign from special interests. "Here's the really good news: I don't owe anyone anything," Whitman said, according to the Los Angeles Times.

Fiorina's Track Record
In the Senate race, Fiorina faces an 18-year incumbent in Boxer, but the former HP head is not exactly a political novice. She served as an economic adviser to former presidential hopeful John McCain during the 2008 election. She played a less prominent role during the campaign, however, after she suggested in an interview that neither McCain nor his VP choice, Sarah Palin, had enough experience to run a major corporation.

On her campaign Web site, Fiorina did not list technology among her top issues, focusing instead on small businesses and jobs, taxes, energy, and healthcare. Within the taxes category, however, she said she would make sure "every federal budget goes up on the Internet" and "every bill goes into the Internet.

As a senator, Fiorina says her top priorities will be economic recovery and fiscal accountability. "I will not settle for a jobless recovery and we must start the important work of getting our financial house back in order," Fiorina said in a statement.

From Board Room to Ballot Box
For those using history to predict the outcome of these races, the record shows mixed results for executives who run for office. Success stories include Bloomberg L.P. CEO Michael Bloomberg, who is currently in this third term as New York City mayor and Virginia senator Mark Warner, who made a fortune in telecommunications in the 1980s. On the other hand, there are examples such as former executives and failed presidential candidates Ross Perot and Steve Forbes. Time will tell if these tech magnates have the skills and political will to win their races. As Karen Tumulty of the Washington Post put it in a recent story, "CEOs, used to getting their way and having underlings jump at their commands, can be ill-equipped for the slow, frustrating grind of politics."