Eu’s Son Enters Race for Controller as Republican

Matthew (Kip) Fong, taking aim at generous sources of campaign money developed by his mother, Democratic Secretary of State March Fong Eu, on Tuesday formally announced his candidacy as a Republican for state controller.

For Fong, a 36-year-old Los Angeles attorney who switched from the Democratic Party to the GOP two years ago, the campaign will be his first for elective office.

He announced his candidacy in Los Angeles, San Francisco and Sacramento and joked that his mother had missed them all.

“Maybe we’ll find her on a milk carton . . . , “ he quipped.

Fong’s registration as a Republican and as a GOP candidate for office has caused tension between Eu and Fong, both have conceded. Eu said last month that she would be “neutral” in the state controller’s race, which could pit incumbent Democrat Gray Davis against her son in the general election next year.

Fong declared himself a candidate of “honesty, integrity and ethics” and suggested that Davis lacked these characteristics. But when pressed by reporters to specify any shortcomings of Davis, Fong demurred.

“We have 12 months to talk about Gray Davis,” he said. “Right now, we’re just talking about honesty and integrity.”

Fong, the only announced GOP candidate for controller, said he will seek contributions from the same Asian community sources that have supported his mother.

“We have a lot of common friends that are going to be helping both of us,” he said.

Eu, the four-term secretary of state who has made raising money in the increasingly politically active Asian community almost an art form, said earlier Tuesday that she expects her son to seek campaign funds from sources she had long cultivated.

“When you raise your children all their lives, they know all the same people their parents know,” Eu said, noting that her son managed her 1982 reelection campaign.

Eu, who plans to seek another term next year, said she did not know if competition from her son for funds from Asian-American contributors would hurt her own money-raising efforts.

“I think most of the Asian community will support both of us equally because two different offices are involved,” she said.