SACRAMENTO, Calif. _ In the thick of a Detroit winter in 1997, Meg Whitman grappled with what she acknowledges was the least successful chapter of her professional life.
She was leaving her first-ever CEO posting, at the floral company FTD, after two disappointing years struggling to turn a profit.
Adding to the burden of the job was the commute to see her young family in Boston and the suspicion of layoff-weary employees.
"This company is not fixable, at least not by me," Whitman told FTD Chairman Richard Perry at the end of her term.
Now Whitman, who recounts the story in a recently released book, is running to govern the state of California, another enterprise that many have said can't be fixed.
The Republican gubernatorial candidate, 53, is pledging to apply her business savvy, honed over three decades in management, to revive a state beset by budget deficits and political stalemate.
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