Commentary: Fabulously wealthy and politically lame — a brief history of California politics

Over the past half-century, numerous rich candidates have mounted failed bids for governor and U.S. Senate.

Billionaire Rick Caruso is eyeing a gubernatorial run in a field that already includes wealthy newcomer Stephen Cloobeck.

The rich, to paraphrase F. Scott Fitzgerald, are different. In California, they lose a lot of very expensive, very high-profile political races.

Over the past 50-plus years, a half-dozen fabulously wealthy men and women — William Matson Roth , Meg Whitman , Carly Fiorina among them — have clambered atop their hefty cash piles and, despite any significant political experience, tried to launch themselves into the office of governor or U.S. senator.

Every last one of them failed.

Others with at least some background in elected office — Michael Huffington