San Francisco -- Meg Whitman stopped by a Cuban bakery in Southern California on Friday. And in the past few days she's hit a pizza parlor, an ice cream shop and a diner. With a Field Poll this week showing the GOP gubernatorial candidate trailing Democrat Jerry Brown by 10 points -- and with more than half of Californians having a negative view of her -- Whitman's Rolls Royce campaign is trying something new: Honda Civic-style charm. The former eBay CEO is sliding into diner's booths and talking to small-town voters, sampling goodies at butcher shops, waving to passers-by, strolling Main Streets and airing soft-focus ads that rhapsodize about how 'real' she is. With three days left in a campaign that has lasted 18 months, and cost her $142 million of her own money, analysts wonder why Whitman didn't do more unscripted -- or at least less-scripted -- campaign stops before the final lap. The Republican has done hundreds of events around the state, but until recently most of them were characterized by their presidential-level profile -- Klieg lights, billboards proclaiming 'Jobs are on the Way' and invited audiences, with media access tightly controlled. Whitman spokeswoman Andrea Jones Rivera said Friday that the candidate has mingled with everyday folks throughout her campaign. 'We are pleased that going into the final stretch we are talking about how likable and personable she is,' Rivera said. 'She is the kind of person people want to have over for dinner.' But political observers say Whitman could have used such exposure to people who lacked strong political beliefs from the start of the campaign. It could have softened her image, they say, while also helping the first-time candidate get some seasoning and experience thinking on her feet. Whitman showed that inexperience this week at Maria Shriver's Women's Conference in Long Beach. When TV host Matt Lauer, in a conversation with her and her opponent, Democrat Jerry Brown, asked whether she would agree to drop all of her negative ads, as Brown had just pledged to do. She didn't. And the audience of 14,000 people, most of them women, booed. 'People are still wondering if she's a carbon-based life form,' said A.G. Block, associate director of the UC Davis Institute of Governmental Affairs and the former editor of the nonpartisan California Journal. 'Voters want to get to know who the candidate is,' Block said. 'And we haven't seen Whitman do a lot of campaign stops where she was forced to think on her feet. And when she has, she has fallen flat.' In an attempt to get more personal on the campaign trail, Whitman has in recent days: -- Meandered down Main Street in Pleasanton, stopping in bars and ice cream parlors. But the Oct. 20 visit was scheduled at the start of the San Francisco Giants-Philadelphia Phillies' fourth game in the National League Championship Series. The few TV cameras that showed up left quickly, leaving the candidate walking the town for 90 minutes with only one reporter tagging along as she reached out to a couple dozen voters. -- Two days later, Whitman appeared with fellow billionaire and New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg at a San Jose graphic design company. When The Chronicle asked what she had learned on the campaign trail from someone who made minimum wage, she said: 'I was just with someone the other day whose husband lost his job at a minimum wage retail establishment because business is so bad that the retailer was laying off people.' -- In Glendale on Friday, Whitman mingled with customers at Porto's Bakery but was also met by the California Nurses Association's star protester -- the 'Queen Meg' character -- who showed up with crowds of nurses and teachers to voice their opposition to the Republican's plan to cut 40,000 state jobs. Melinda Markowitz, president of the California Nurses Association, managed to get the kind of access to Whitman that she wouldn't have had in the early days of the campaign: She walked up to the candidate and asked her to explain the cuts. Whitman 'just kept smiling' and didn't answer, Markowitz said. The Republican's media campaign modified its strategy two weeks ago to include advertisements with images of Whitman as a baby-kissing, diner-hopping candidate interspersed with ads slamming Brown as a smear merchant, 'job-killer' and 'failure.' This week, the campaign released a 2-minute online ad that focuses on Whitman's campaign bus travels throughout the state. The soft-focus ad captures what appears to be the surprise and excitement of folks in smaller towns such as Burney in Shasta County when they see Whitman up close and personal. 'It was an absolute surprise to see Meg today,' one person said. 'She stopped at every table, every single table along the way and greeted everybody,' another said. 'I would never have expected her to be in this area' yet another one said, 'or be at the same place I was going to.' Rivera said Whitman's campaign staff has always seen her as personable, while Brown, she said, 'spent his tenure in office 'closing down the bars,' and those are his words. People expect more than that from their leaders.' 