Meg Whitman vs. Carly Fiorina: Catfight!

Gubernatorial nominee Meg Whitman and US Senate hopeful Carly Fiorina are the first women to fill those roles for the California Republican party, which means they're often treated as a unit despite their numerous differences and contentious history. "It's like—OK, we've got two gals running now, they must have been putting their makeup on in the bathrooms together," a B-school professor tells the LA Times, which proceeds to help prove her point. "Would we assume the same if one were a man or both were men?"

The bad blood between the two dates to 2008, when both advised the John McCain campaign. The Times paints Whitman as mercurial and occasionally bad-tempered, Fiorina as hyperambitious yet visionary. The "biggest issue" of the night McCain accepted the presidential nomination was keeping Fiorina and Whitman separated, says an RNC insider. But reps for the McCain campaign and both candidates strenuously deny the existence of a rivalry.