Democrats’ County Chief May Re-Enter Campaign Fray

Newport Beach attorney Bruce Sumner had modest plans for the next few months.

In April, the former state assemblyman was to attend a conference on world affairs in Colorado. He had a few more legal battles to fight in his role as a trustee handling the pension funds of an insolvent Santa Ana bank. And in July he’d planned a trip to China--three weeks of touring and competing in swimming meets.

But Sunday morning, Sumner was pondering a move that would disrupt those plans and place him in possibly the most unusual political contest of his life--running as a write-in candidate for Congress.

At the Orange County Democratic convention the day before, Sumner, the white-haired, quiet-spoken chairman of the county party, had been asked by longtime activists to run in June as the party standard bearer for the 40th Congressional District.

LaRouche Follower in Race

County Democratic leaders began considering a write-in candidate last week after they discovered that Art Hoffmann, 29, a Santa Ana technical writer--and the only Democrat to file against Rep. Robert E. Badham (R-Newport Beach)--was a follower of political extremist Lyndon LaRouche.

Their concern turned to alarm on Tuesday when LaRouche followers scored upset victories for secretary of state and lieutenant governor in the Democratic primary in Illinois. Fearing a similar victory here, county Democrats, Sumner among them, began seeking a candidate who could offer mainstream party views.

In a telephone interview Sunday, Sumner said he strongly believes that the party should present an alternative to Hoffmann.

“Most people, if they knew what the issue was, wouldn’t want to send people with AIDS off to the desert,” he said, referring to a LaRouche proposal to identify and quarantine victims of acquired immune deficiency syndrome.

Still, the 60-year-old party chairman said, he wasn’t sure he wanted to be the candidate. “I’m in the throes of making the decision,” he said. “Do I want to get involved? Do I want to run?”

But if he didn’t, and if the Democrats did not advance a strong alternative to Hoffmann, “some people might connote that as a certain weakness in the Democratic Party organization here,” Sumner said. “Although the idea of him (Hoffmann) winning the general election is remote, the idea of having the congressional makeup in Orange County include a LaRouche member is very distasteful.”

And if Hoffmann took only the primary, “it would be an advantage to the LaRouche people for (pushing) future candidates,” Sumner said.

Sumner said he would announce his decision at a press conference today. Four other Democrats have already volunteered as write-in candidates, including Alan Woo of Santa Ana and Robert Hanson of Costa Mesa.

But at the convention Saturday, old friends of Sumner tried to draft him. Among those asking him to run were rancher and restaurateur Richard J. O’Neill and political consultant Howard Adler, both major Democratic financiers. And at lunch Saturday, Sumner sounded out another old friend--Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley, who was in Costa Mesa for the convention.

Support From Bradley

Sumner said he looked to Bradley for an objective view. “In politics it’s very easy to get caught up in what you want to have happen. It’s easy to be unrealistic. . . . Some people you talk to (to have them) say ‘no’ to what you think is a wonderful idea.”

But Bradley didn’t say ‘no,’ Sumner said. “He was very flattering about me. It kind of ends up as ‘do what you want to do.’ ”

Part of the decision, Sumner said, is consideration of the logistics of a write-in campaign. On the plus side was his name recognition and familiarity with the district.

From 1956 to 1964, Sumner served as an assemblyman from Laguna Beach, losing his seat only after John Birch Society member John G. Schmitz defeated him in a bitter Republican primary for the state Senate in 1964. (Sumner, originally a moderate Republican, switched parties in 1971.)

Sumner also served 18 years as a Superior Court judge, retiring from the bench in 1984 after handling some of the county’s most controversial issues involving expansion of John Wayne Airport.

Another plus was that leading Democrats had promised that he would have all the money he’d need, Sumner said. Sumner figured he could count on mainstream Democratic support in the primary and possibly bipartisan support in the general election in November.

‘Difficult Campaign’

Still, a write-in bid in a primary would require “a tremendous precinct organization. . . . It’s a terribly difficult campaign,” Sumner said. And one critical question would be how to keep voters interested in the race.

“I regard a write-in campaign with awe,” Sumner said. “I know how difficult it is to get people’s attention on the ballot. . . . You send them literature, but they don’t necessarily read it.”

At the moment, local and national media have focused attention on LaRouche candidates in Illinois and Orange County. But on Saturday, during the convention’s 70th Assembly District caucus, “it was amazing to me that more than half the people had never heard about it,” Sumner said.

“There were all these people, up early Saturday morning, interested in politics and they didn’t know about this fact,” that a LaRouche candidate was unopposed on the Democratic ticket for Congress, Sumner said.