In the end, the Senate GOP campaign has come down to this: What's more important, money or political experience?

If polls are accurate, the voters are evenly split.

As this column is posted, candidates in California's first "blanket primary" have entered their final full day of campaigning. After millions of dollars, months of advertising and scores of political events, voters in the Republican Senate race are evenly divided between state Treasurer Matt Fong and millionaire businessman Darrell Issa.

For those who count votes, Tuesday night is going to be long indeed. If the polls are any indication, it could be well into the wee hours of Wednesday morning, or even beyond, before a victor is determined.

The drama is on the Republican side; Democratic incumbent Barbara Boxer faces only token opposition.

Issa and Fong are locked in a virtual dead heat, but they reached this deadlock through vastly different routes. Superficially at least, they are similar: Both are 44, both are conservatives, both espouse fiscal prudence and both say less government is better government.

But Fong, the son of former Democratic secretary of state March Fong Eu, is a political professional, serving first in the Board of Equalization, a powerful but obscure tax appeals agency, and then as state treasurer. He raised in excess of $3 million for his race; respectable, perhaps, but not in the same league as Issa, whose last disclosure report put his war chest at $12.4 million.

Issa, who owns the world's largest auto alarm manufacturing company, a $75 million-a-year business, has never held office before. He has donated to political causes, and he worked on the logistical side of the Republican National Convention two years ago in San Diego, but he is a political neophyte.

He announced for the Senate nearly a year ago, and he has been running television ads since then. Fong launched his first and only television ad three weeks ago.

Issa, at least until the last week of the campaign, has stumped sparingly. Fong has been on the campaign trail for months in the classic fashion since January, meeting people one-on-one, addressing groups large and small, hoping to make up for a lack of television exposure with numerous personal appearances.

Remarkably, both methods seemed to have worked: According to Mervin Field's latest survey, the two are virtually tied.

Fong's campaign points out that of the last 14 millionaire candidates with no political experience in California elections, all have lost. Issa's campaign points out, in effect, that there's always a first time.

Now, it's up to the voters.

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