Matsui Scraps Campaign for Cranston Seat

Tears welling in his eyes, Democratic Rep. Robert T. Matsui abruptly scrapped his long-running yet little-known campaign for the U.S. Senate on Thursday, saying that the pressures of his father’s life-threatening cancer made it impossible to maintain the “all-consuming” pace of a statewide race.

Talking to reporters in his Washington office, Matsui grew emotional as he referred to his father, Yas, 74, who has lung cancer and is living in a retirement home in Sacramento, the congressman’s district seat.

“He has no one else except me,” said Matsui, whose mother and only sibling, a sister, are dead. “He and I are the only two left of the original family. I just have some commitments to him.”

Instead of the Senate, Matsui said he will seek an eighth term in the House of Representatives.

Matsui, 49, who had aimed for the seat held by the retiring Alan Cranston, quit with his Senate candidacy lagging well behind those of better-known Democrats such as former Gov. Edmund G. Brown Jr. and Lt. Gov. Leo T. McCarthy.

The congressman was the first of 10 California politicians to set his sights on the Senate--he formally announced his plans last November, two full years before the election--and became the first to remove himself from the race. Two Senate seats, Cranston’s and the one held by appointed Sen. John Seymour, a Republican, will be contested in 1992.

Despite his low standing in early polls, Matsui was seen as having promise because of his fund-raising ability. Since he began considering the Senate run more than a year ago, Matsui has raised about $1.6 million, his campaign manager, Clint Reilly, said.

Fund raising also played a role in the timing of Matsui’s announcement. According to Reilly, the congressman had 35 fund-raisers scheduled in the five weeks before the June 30 deadline by which candidates have to report their income.

Had Matsui continued in the race for the next few weeks before dropping out, he would have been in the uncomfortable position of seeming to collect money under pretense.

Matsui also backed away from a U.S. Senate race in 1988 after he considered running against then-incumbent Pete Wilson. He deferred the bid then out of a desire to spend more time with his son, who was in high school.

In his brief remarks Thursday, Matsui indicated concern that his credibility could be called into question after a second departure. While he did not discuss his father’s illness in detail, Reilly said the cancer was diagnosed after Matsui had entered the race.

“All I can say is people will have to take me at my word, look at what happened, look at the facts,” Matsui said. “I can’t tell you how difficult this decision was.”

Matsui’s move removes from the race its most moderate Democratic voice, and a candidate who had vowed to win on unfamiliar territory--the suburban and Central California areas that have leaned Republican in recent elections.

In his early campaigning, the congressman had repeatedly argued that Democrats needed to sell their message to conservative neighborhoods. Describing himself as “the only candidate who comes from the inland counties,” Matsui, a Japanese-American, also served as a symbol of the increasingly minority face of California.

With Matsui gone, three announced Democrats remain in the race for the Cranston seat--Brown, McCarthy and Rep. Barbara Boxer of Marin County. Rep. Mel Levine of Los Angeles, although he has not announced his intentions, is also likely to run. Republican candidates include Rep. Tom Campbell of Palo Alto and Los Angeles television commentator Bruce Herschensohn.

Besides Seymour, those running for the other seat include Republican Rep. William Dannemeyer of Fullerton and Democrat Dianne Feinstein, the 1990 gubernatorial candidate. State Controller Gray Davis, who has said he will run for one of the seats, is leaning toward a primary challenge of Feinstein.

Decker reported from Los Angeles and Houston from Washington.