How the party will address its predicament is expected to play out all weekend in a desert resort near Palm Springs.

Insiders will try to craft more effective voter registration campaigns and a strategy to draw more women and minorities. But the main attraction will be the three candidates seeking to succeed Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger when he is termed out of office after next year.

Former eBay chief executive Meg Whitman, state Insurance Commissioner Steve Poizner and former congressman Tom Campbell do not wear the social conservative label that has become so prevalent in the party in recent years, putting them at odds with many GOP die-hards.

Instead, they are expected to focus on the area where they can find common ground with this weekend's delegates -- state fiscal policy.

With California mired in a perpetual cycle of budget deficits, the candidates are expected to position themselves as the most responsible stewards of taxpayer money.

Many Republicans are trying to focus the party on financial issues, emboldened by conservatives' nationwide protests this summer of Democratic health care proposals and federal stimulus spending.

Whitman, a billionaire, officially launched her gubernatorial campaign this week, promising to slash an additional $15 billion in state spending and fire 40,000 state workers, although she declined to detail how she would do that. She also sought to curry favor with the party by giving it $250,000 from her personal fortune for voter-registration efforts.

The donation became tinged with a sense of irony when, later in the week, The Sacramento Bee reported that Whitman had not been registered to vote before 2002 and that there was no evidence she had ever registered as a Republican before 2007. The embarrassing revelations prompted Whitman to apologize and take "responsibility for my mistake."

Poizner, meanwhile, released a plan to cut taxes then appeared on a conservative Los Angeles talk radio show, where he signed a pledge saying he would never raise taxes. The pledge has been promoted to lawmakers nationwide by anti-tax activist Grover Norquist, president of Americans for Tax Reform in Washington, D.C.

Campbell released a plan he said would provide health insurance coverage to another 2 million Californians without any additional cost to taxpayers. He also has released his own detailed budget proposal, including a temporary 32-cent-a-gallon gas tax to help shore up the state budget during the recession.

Until this week, the soft-spoken Campbell has largely avoided taking part in the sharp exchanges between the campaigns of Whitman and Poizner, but he joined Poizner this week in blasting Whitman for her lack of specifics when she announced her plans to reduce state government.

In his scheduled Friday night speech to the convention, Campbell takes a swipe at Whitman, without naming her. He challenges voters to question those who claim they will pay for government programs by eliminating "waste, fraud and abuse," as Whitman said she will do.

"We should never accept that phrase as a substitute for actual numbers," he said in his prepared remarks.

He also challenges his fellow Republicans to do some soul-searching about the party's future. Republican registration in California has slipped to 31 percent of voters, compared to nearly 45 percent for Democrats, and its lawmakers are in the minority in both houses of the Legislature.

The GOP also has had difficulty attracting the 20 percent of California voters registered as independents.

Campbell calls on Republicans to energize around core GOP principles, particularly fiscal conservatism, or risk further alienating voters.

"The patience of the people is running out with all those in government service," he said in the remarks he is scheduled to deliver. "And, while their dissatisfaction might find its outlet more with the Democrats who run the Legislature than with us Republicans in the minority, an honest self assessment compels us to admit that we could do better."

Campbell and Poizner have sought to contrast their deeper knowledge of complex policy issues with Whitman's lack of experience in government. Whitman, a political novice, has demonstrated her fundraising prowess and poured $19 million of her own money into her campaign.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger also was scheduled to address the group Friday night, while Whitman and Poizner will appear separately on Saturday.

The governor could face a tepid response from party activists, especially after he violated party principles in February by agreeing to raise the income, sales and vehicle taxes.

He has had an arms-length relationship with the party and has scolded its leaders in the past for adhering to strict right-wing ideology. During his last formal address to a party convention, he called out party leaders in 2007 by saying the California Republican Party was dying at the box office.

His spokesman, Aaron McLear, said Schwarzenegger will stick to policy issues this time.

U.S. Rep. Mike Pence of Indiana, whose name has been floated as a possible presidential candidate in 2012, and Fred Barnes, the executive editor of the Weekly Standard, also will address the convention.