Carly Fiorina is as close as it gets to a Silicon Valley candidate for president. So why did the former Hewlett-Packard CEO move 2,400 miles across the country to leave her California story behind?

It's a question Fiorina, who officially launched her campaign on Monday, must carefully manage as she sells herself as the secretary who rose to CEO of a legendary tech company, the first woman to run a Fortune 20 firm, but one whose Silicon Valley experience could bust as much as boost her candidacy. With big business in California eyeing Jeb Bush, the Bay Area's libertarians leaning toward Rand Paul and progressives and women backing Hillary Clinton, it's no wonder Fiorina relocated to Virginia to make her unlikely run at the White House.

"She's got a troubled history here, to say the least -- she has a lot of critics and a track record at HP that leaves her open to some fair criticism," San Jose State professor and political expert Melinda Jackson said. "If she's going to run as the Silicon Valley, tech-savvy candidate, she will need to have at least some support from the valley."

Yet some of the region's most prominent Republican voices stayed mum Monday about "Carly for America." Representatives for Peter Thiel, the libertarian-leaning San Francisco billionaire venture capitalist and PayPal co-founder; Meg Whitman, HP's current CEO and the 2010 Republican nominee for governor; and Sun Microsystems founder Scott McNealy, of Portola Valley, said they weren't available for comment Monday on Fiorina's candidacy. Major GOP donor Charles Munger Jr. of Palo Alto and Internet browser pioneer and venture capitalist Marc Andreessen, of Atherton, didn't respond to inquiries.