‘Campaign? What Campaign?’ : Robinson Using Low-Key Strategy to Battle Dornan

“Campaign? What campaign?”

As he sat in a Garden Grove coffee shop, Rep. Robert K. Dornan (R-Garden Grove) toyed with a plateful of scrambled eggs and wondered aloud when his much-ballyhooed race with a tough Democratic challenger would finally begin.

With less than four weeks before the Nov. 4 election, Assemblyman Richard Robinson (D-Garden Grove) hadn’t landed a punch or even entered the ring, Dornan said. How could the Democrats wage a serious campaign that way?

Two years ago, Dornan and Democratic incumbent Jerry Patterson scratched, clawed and battled their way across the 38th Congressional District in a race that cost them a total of more than $2 million. Dornan won the vitriolic contest by nearly 13,000 votes.

“By this time in the last election, we both had mailings going and tension was building to the first big debate,” Dornan said, seeming to relish the memory. “By now our tongue was hanging out and we had just turned the corner on the dreaded third turn. We missed the wall and we were in the straightaway. I mean, we were in the straightaway. “

Dornan paused, looking disappointed: “So where is Dick Robinson these days?”

Nearly 3,000 miles away, in the midst of a Washington, D.C., fund-raiser with labor representatives, Robinson smiled when told of Dornan’s taunts.

“I’m running my own kind of campaign against Bob Dornan, and it makes him uncomfortable,” said the six-term assemblyman. “We’ll see who made the right choice on election day.”

Recalling Dornan’s celebrated scuffle last year with Rep. Thomas Downey (D-N.Y.)--a fracas in which the flamboyant Republican jerked Downey’s tie and called him a “draft-dodging wimp,”--Robinson added, “I’m not going to get into any tie-pulling contests with this man.”

Indeed, Robinson is pursuing a more low-key strategy than Patterson did, raising funds here and in Washington, seeking support from community groups and preparing what is expected to be an aggressive political mail campaign in the last three weeks before the election.

Although Dornan probably will outspend him by a large margin, Robinson believes he will have enough money to get his message out to voters. Above all, he is determined to limit the number of personal confrontations with his opponent. As of now, the candidates are scheduled to meet in only one public debate and on an Orange County public television show.

It is all part of Robinson’s strategy to build up his visibility with voters, attack his opponent’s record and yet “never once let Bob Dornan be Bob Dornan,” said an official at the Democratic National Congressional Campaign Committee in Washington. The committee has made the Dornan-Robinson match-up one of its 40 to 50 target congressional races this fall.

Democratic consultants concede that it will be a tough race. Dornan, an energetic campaigner, already has sent two mailers attacking Robinson and promises “a blitz . . . a war to the death in the mailboxes” during the coming weeks.

Noting Dornan’s penchant for aggressive, sometimes belligerent behavior, the DNCCC official said, “Common sense might tell you that he (Dornan) is crazy, and that stuff can’t help you. But that’s his shtick; it’s what plays to his advantage. You don’t want the battle with him to be fought across the pages of the newspaper, because I think he comes out ahead that way.”

Robinson, who has yet to send out his first political mailer of the campaign, flew to Washington earlier this month for several fund-raisers arranged by influential members of the California Democratic congressional delegation, including Los Angeles Reps. Howard Berman and Henry Waxman. During a whirlwind morning of so-called “meet-and-greet” sessions, he was introduced to potential donors who could be helpful to his campaign.

These meetings are commonplace around election time in Washington, and other congressional hopefuls also were scheduled to meet with donor groups the same day. Berman, however, said Robinson’s sessions were unusual because they had been arranged by leading members of the state’s delegation, who also appeared at the functions.

‘Out of the Ordinary’

The fund-raisers were “totally out of the ordinary . . . in large part because Bob Dornan is the opponent in this race,” Berman explained. “Around here, there’s a tremendous inclination not to get involved in races against incumbents of the other party, since we all have to work together and we all have friends in the opposite party.

“But in this case, we have a huge number of California Democrats and others who find that Bob Dornan is difficult to work with, not on a personal, but on a political level.”

The scheduling for Robinson’s day in Washington was arranged in part by his campaign firm, Berman and d’Agostino Campaigns, which is associated with the influential Berman-Waxman political operation in Los Angeles. The organization’s political clout was evident during Robinson’s two morning meetings with professional health care and labor groups.

As he introduced Robinson at the health care fund-raiser, for example, Berman reminded the audience that Waxman, a key member of the House subcommittee on health and long-term care, would soon be addressing them. When his colleague arrived, Berman noted with a chuckle that legislation affecting the health industry was being decided that day, “so we should probably go around now to get (financial) pledges.”

The laughter continued when Waxman told the group that the next person to speak on behalf of Robinson would be Rep. Robert T. Matsui (D-Sacramento), a member of the powerful House Ways and Means Committee, which also acts on health care legislation.

‘Meeting Is a Signal’

“This kind of meeting is a signal to the health care industry that they (Waxman and Berman) want Robinson elected,” said Jay Cutler, executive director of the Corporation for the Advancement of Psychiatry. “The meeting lets all these donors get a sense of the candidate.”

Two hours later, Robinson attended a fund-raiser for members of labor groups that included John Perkins, who heads the political action arm of the AFL-CIO. Several members of the audience said they had not heard of Robinson until that day and expressed confusion about the location of his Orange County district. But that did not stop them from helping his campaign.

Joan Baggett, a legislative representative for the Bricklayers and Allied Craftsmen union, handed Robinson a check in an envelope, saying, “I don’t know much about your district, but Howard Berman is very persuasive.”

At one point, Robinson was accosted by Evy Dubrow, a diminutive representative of the Ladies Garment Workers Union who boasted that she is one of the oldest lobbyists on Capitol Hill.

“So this is the man running against Bob Dornan?” she said, vigorously shaking Robinson’s hand. “Good luck in your race. You picked a tough one.”