Write-In Candidacy Mounted to Sidetrack LaRouche Follower

Hoping to prevent a follower of Lyndon LaRouche from winning the Democratic Party’s nomination for Congress by default, Bruce W. Sumner, the party’s Orange County chairman, announced Tuesday that he will be a write-in candidate in the 40th Congressional District.

The former state assemblyman and retired Superior Court judge told reporters at the party’s Santa Ana headquarters that he wants “to give the Democrats of the district a standard-bearer who is not an extremist representing an absurd but dangerous philosophy.”

“To espouse seriously that the Queen of England, Henry Kissinger and Walter Mondale are involved in some sort of conspiracy to turn the Free World over to the communists borders on lunacy,” Sumner said in reference to LaRouche’s theories.

“But when this view is coupled with a well-financed national campaign, all Americans should be concerned.”

Ted J. Andromidas, a LaRouche spokesman in Los Angeles, said the Orange County Democratic Party is operating “in Disneyland” and understands neither LaRouche’s views nor the voters.

Not Official Party Unit

LaRouche has organized his followers into an organization called the National Democratic Policy Committee. The group is not an official unit within the Democratic Party, although its members have registered as Democrats and LaRouche has urged them to run as Democrats in local elections.

Advocacy of an outer space-based laser-beam weapons system has been a part of their platform in those races.

Two LaRouche followers gained national attention last week with victories in statewide Illinois primary races.

In Orange County last week, Democrats learned to their embarrassment, that the only Democrat to file against five-term incumbent Rep. Robert E. Badham (R-Newport Beach) was Art Hoffmann, 29, a Santa Ana technical writer and LaRouche follower. If Hoffmann remained unopposed, he would be the party’s nominee after the June 3 primary and would automatically receive a seat on the party’s Central Committee.