Rockefeller Quitting Arkansas Race

Lt. Gov. Win Rockefeller said Tuesday that he was abandoning his run for governor, an office his father held for two terms, because of a blood disorder that could eventually turn into leukemia.

Rockefeller, 56, said his medical team advised him against taking on former Homeland Security Undersecretary Asa Hutchinson for the Republican nomination in 2006.

“Effective immediately I am retiring from this campaign,” Rockefeller said at a news conference. “We’re doing a bone marrow transplant and getting this under control.”

The decision knocks the billionaire lieutenant governor out of what he acknowledged could be his best chance of following in the footsteps of his father. The governor’s race will be for an open seat for the first time in nearly three decades.

Rockefeller said he would remain lieutenant governor while undergoing treatment.

“Obviously it’s been a difficult decision. I’ve been thinking about it for quite a while,” Rockefeller said. “It comes down to my health and my family first. Politics comes later.”

Rockefeller is a grandson of former Standard Oil chief John D. Rockefeller Jr. and is worth an estimated $1.2 billion. He also is a cousin to Sen. John D. Rockefeller IV (D-W.Va.). His father, the late Winthrop Rockefeller, served as Arkansas governor from 1967 to 1971 as the first Republican leader of the state since Reconstruction.

“I was saddened by the news of his illness,” Hutchinson said. “He’s given a great deal to Arkansas. I know all of Arkansas will be praying for him during this time of treatment.”

Rockefeller has been Arkansas’ lieutenant governor since 1996, when he won a special election to replace Mike Huckabee, now the Arkansas governor. Huckabee moved up when Jim Guy Tucker resigned after his Whitewater conviction.

Rockefeller said he would address the condition aggressively and with humor, joking, “This is going to ruin this year’s duck season, but hopefully I’ll have many more duck seasons after that if I do it right.”

He said he would look into programs around the country that do the type of procedure he needs and pick one. He did not say how soon it would occur but said recovery would take six months to a year and that he expected to make a full recovery.