MENLO PARK, Calif. — As night falls on Sand Hill Road, Susan Golding faces an audience of venture capitalists, another seeker come to Silicon Valley's promised land.
Fading sunlight dapples the rolling countryside as Golding makes her pitch: the opportunity, the market niche, the payoff.
Countless supplicants and visionaries have made this pilgrimage to woo and win the gung-ho entrepreneurs who inhabit the woodsy office parks lining Sand Hill Road.
But Golding's pursuit is no start-up software company or newfangled Internet technology. The San Diego mayor is after a seat in the U.S. Senate, specifically the one held by Democrat Barbara Boxer.
Like many who come here shopping their grandiose schemes, seeking dollars to make their dreams reality, candidate Golding offers great promise but a good deal less in proven results.
Her fund-raising has been anemic and her statewide profile virtually nonexistent since she quietly entered the race, via faxed press release, last spring.
Troubling questions have surrounded her vaunted campaign team, acquired lock, stock and barrel from Gov. Pete Wilson's political operation.
Perhaps most difficult of all, "Nobody north of La Jolla has the foggiest idea who the mayor of San Diego is," said Republican strategist Allan Hoffenblum.
Still, despite all that, Golding continues to enjoy what many political insiders see as her singular advantage in the GOP primary--her perceived strength in the general election.
"I believe, against Boxer, that I'm the strongest candidate," Golding told the crowd of 30 high-tech executives, most of whom seemed to walk away impressed. "And I think she believes it too."
Articulate, experienced and--ever so crucial--poised in front of the TV cameras, Golding is the very reflection of the fiscally conservative, socially moderate swing voter that tends to decide California elections.
But first there is the matter of winning a competitive Republican primary for the chance to face Boxer in the fall of 1998. And many observers agree that Golding's performance to date has hardly matched her considerable potential.
"She needs to raise money, she needs to increase her name recognition and she needs to have a base of support. And I don't see much movement on any of those things, " said political analyst Sherry Bebitch Jeffe, echoing the private assessment of several strategists from both parties.
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