Dornan’s Money Machine Puts His Stamp on Donors

Every three weeks, Rep. Robert K. Dornan posts a long letter to 25,000 of his conservative soul-mates, many of them elderly and most of them hundreds of miles removed from his Orange County congressional district.

One letter begins with a folksy anecdote about the birth of a grandchild, another with a strident call to arms over the latest liberal assault on traditional values. But all the letters end the same way--with an urgent appeal for money.

“There are so many battles yet to be fought,” Dornan writes. “The liberals are licking their chops.”

But if anyone is salivating, it should be Dornan. In the 21-month period ending Sept. 30, the Garden Grove Republican raised nearly $1.4 million, largely in contributions of $25 or $35, with one of the most sophisticated direct-mail money machines ever seen on Capitol Hill. In the 1988 election cycle, Dornan raised more money--$1.7 million--than anyone else in the House. Nearly two-thirds of his contributions come from outside California.

Like Sen. Jesse Helms (R-N.C.) on the right and Rep. Stephen J. Solarz (D-N.Y.) on the left, Dornan is one of a handful of lawmakers who have gone national, teaming up with direct-mail professionals to parlay his causes, his rhetoric and his media savvy into bankable assets.

It is not a game everyone can play. “I think Dornan has distinguished himself by virtue of extremism,” said Hal Malchow, whose Washington-based Malchow & Co. raises money for a host of prominent Democrats. “The people who tend to respond to direct mail tend to be those who are the most conservative and the most liberal of the party donors.”

Dornan and his supporters say his direct-mail operation frees him from the influence of special interests, particularly the big-spending political action committees that pay the bills in most House campaigns.

But some see danger signs: Dornan’s money machine tends to dissuade potential challengers from taking on the conservative firebrand. It raises questions about his ability to adequately represent hometown interests at the same time he courts a national constituency. And it requires the services of professional direct-mail operatives, some of whom have drawn criticism for exploiting elderly contributors with emotional and unrelenting appeals for cash.

For Dornan, however, the biggest drawback is the crushing expense of raising money through the mail.

Dornan spends little on actual campaigning. He has not faced a tough race since he first won his Orange County seat in 1984. (This year, his Democratic opponent withdrew before the primary, although her name remains on the ballot.) The lion’s share of Dornan’s contributions is spent keeping his fund-raising machine humming.

Between Jan. 1, 1989, and Sept. 30, 1990, Dornan’s two active campaign committees spent $945,215--68% of the contributions they received--on direct-mail solicitations. That makes Dornan far and away the heaviest spender on direct mail in the House of Representatives.

“It shocks some people . . . the cost,” said Robin Dornan, a professional fund-raiser whose Orange County consulting firm works on her father’s campaign account. “But it does give a little guy in Des Moines, Iowa, a chance to send money and become part of the big picture.”

Because of the high price of postage, printing and professional consultants, direct-mail fund raising is “a continuous Catch-22 situation,” said USC Prof. Herbert E. Alexander, director of the Citizens Research Foundation, which studies campaign finance issues. “The more money you need, the more you have to invest in order to raise it.”

The result, Alexander said, “is that not a lot of it goes into the supposed purpose (of the fund raising), which is communicating with potential voters.”

Nevertheless, Dornan said, direct mail is his choice for reasons that are at once personal and professional. For one thing, he said, it suits his personality.

Telephoning potential “heavy-hitter” donors to ask for large contributions is “just so uncomfortable for me,” said the 57-year-old congressman, generally considered one of the more gregarious members of the House.

“You’re asking someone to give you a big chunk of change, and then buy into your service, and hope that they’re not going to call you and argue with you and yell at you, ‘Gee, I helped you and now you’re going the opposite way,’ ” he said.

If Dornan is shy about making personal appeals for money, his fiery television and radio persona helps him raise it through the mail. Dornan is a frequent guest on CNN’s “Crossfire,” his exuberant, after-hours speeches on the House floor are broadcast nationally on cable television by C-SPAN, and he is willing to change plans at a moment’s notice to accept guest spots on national radio and cable TV phone-in programs.

“He puts on a good show. He’s feisty. He knows the issues,” said Ronald A. Kanfer, president of Response Dynamics Inc., the one-stop mail operation that Dornan has used for the past year. “He’s not afraid to speak his mind, and people like to see that and want more.”

The exposure gives Dornan, a former radio and television talk show host, a prominent platform for his issues--he is a virulent opponent of abortion, a champion of a strong national defense and an unabashed foe of homosexual rights. It also has given him celebrity status in many conservative homes.

“It’s like free advertising,” said David A. Kunko, chairman and co-owner of Response Dynamics. “The more his name is out there, the more recognition he has, the better the response rates are going to be in the mail.”

Dornan has other, even more pragmatic reasons to use the mails to raise money. Political action committees, which last year contributed more than $2.6 million to California Congress members alone, have not been overly generous to the Orange County conservative in recent years. Dornan’s latest campaign finance report, for example, lists PAC contributions of only $2,550, out of total contributions of $216,483.

In addition, Dornan said, it would be difficult to quickly raise large sums of money within his own 38th Congressional District, much of which consists of the largely working-class cities of Santa Ana and Garden Grove.

Another plus is that the specter of a well-oiled direct-mail machine can be used to derail potential challengers.

“I think we scared off (Ron) Kovic,” said Robin Dornan, referring to the disabled Vietnam veteran and anti-war activist whose life was the subject of the 1989 film “Born on the Fourth of July.”

Early this year, Kovic publicly flirted with a run against Dornan. Dornan promptly shot off two quick-hit fund-raising letters that denounced Kovic’s role in the anti-war movement and his support from the “Hollywood left.” One letter alone netted $45,000 in contributions. Kovic ultimately decided against making the race.

Finally, a sophisticated direct-mail operation, with lists of tens of thousands of proven conservative supporters across the state and the nation, becomes a source of power and influence in itself.

“If you’re on a (congressional) committee and you need some help, it’s nice to know that you can send a letter to 10,000 or 20,000 people who would generate several thousand handwritten postcards . . . to their congressmen,” said Kunko, Dornan’s fund-raiser. “We haven’t done that with Dornan yet . . . (but) it’s there.”

That same list of contributors could come in handy if a candidate decides to seek higher office, a suggestion that Dornan does not dismiss.

“I didn’t build (the list) with that in mind,” Dornan said, “but I’m not going to deny it’s a comfortable feeling if you did have thoughts like that.” Dornan said he would, for example, “give serious thought” to running in 1992 for the U.S. Senate seat now occupied by Democrat Alan Cranston.

Regardless of the beneficial side-effects, Dornan argues that that financing a campaign with contributions from an army of small givers is inherently more democratic than relying on a cadre of wealthy fat cats willing to pay $1,000 a plate for a chicken dinner and personal access to a candidate.

Many political analysts agree that successful national direct mail operations can afford lawmakers unusual independence from big financial interests, their party hierarchy and their colleagues.

“There’s so much concern about the extent to which candidates are reliant on (political action committee) money, money from special interests, large contributions, that if a candidate is able to raise big money in small sums, namely $10, $25, $50 contributions from a lot of people, that’s a good thing,” said Alexander of the Citizens Research Foundation.

But others have misgivings.

“We are finding that for incumbent members of Congress, their financial base is getting more and more separated from their constituency base, and that is potentially very worrisome,” said Fred Wertheimer, president of Common Cause, the national citizens’ lobby.

“You do have to raise questions about where their loyalties lie if their funding base is not in the district, or if their accountability for reelection is not in the district,” agreed Roger M. Craver, president of Craver, Mathews, Smith & Co., a major fund-raising firm whose roster of clients includes the Sierra Club, the American Civil Liberties Union, Planned Parenthood and the National Abortion Rights Action League.

“It goes way beyond direct mail . . . this goes to the accountability issue,” Craver said. “The reason that it’s bad for representative government is that it challenge-proofs the institution. . . . (Members of Congress) become unaccountable.”

At the same time, a lobbyist who has worked with Dornan on local issues said he believes the Orange County congressman devotes as much attention to his district as other lawmakers. “Dornan is a whirling dervish by nature,” the lobbyist said. “If there is anyone who is capable of juggling several balls at the same time, it’s Dornan.”

In all likelihood, Dornan would never have made it to Congress without direct mail. In 1976, when he was contemplating a run in Los Angeles County’s old 27th Congressional District, based in Santa Monica, he knew he had to raise a lot of money quickly if he hoped to win a tough primary fight.

So Dornan flew to Washington to meet the godfather of conservative direct-mail operations, Richard A. Viguerie, then at the height of his power and influence. At first, Viguerie turned him down. But Dornan brought him around.

“What he was looking for was somebody of action,” Dornan said, “somebody who would say, ‘I’m going to Laos tomorrow,’ and then do it,” as Dornan had done during his days as a talk-show host.

Dornan was elected three times in the 27th District, before reapportionment in 1982 eliminated most of its Republican strongholds. Out of office for two years, Dornan moved to Orange County and was again elected to the House when he ousted incumbent Democrat Jerry Patterson in 1984.

The occasionally stormy relationship with Viguerie ended last year when the Dornan camp concluded that Viguerie’s operation cost too much money. “There was no money coming out of the Viguerie company for the campaign,” one Dornan confidant said.

During his last years with Viguerie, according to an analysis of reports filed with the Federal Election Commission, Dornan’s direct-mail fund-raising expenses consumed nearly 83 cents of every dollar that he raised.

Today, the Dornan fund-raising effort revolves around two poles: the white, red and blue home in southern Orange County where Robin Dornan uses a personal computer to edit her father’s letters, and the modern, black and white monolith in suburban Vienna, Va., where Kunko and Kanfer oversee list-building, printing, mailing and telemarketing.

A former fund-raiser for the Heritage Foundation, Robin Dornan has acted as her father’s chief fund-raising consultant and campaign manager in recent years. Since Jan. 1, 1989, Dornan’s two active campaign committees have paid Robin Dornan’s consulting firm a total of $50,512 in fees and expenses. Another daughter, Terry Dornan, was paid $14,407 during the same period for answering contributors’ mail.

It was Robin Dornan who chose the 10-year-old RDI after the 1988 election, in which her father trounced his Democratic challenger by a margin of nearly 60% to 36%. Under RDI, Dornan’s fund-raising costs have dropped to about 58 cents on the dollar, including postage, FEC records show.

Slick and sophisticated, RDI and its five wholly owned subsidiaries represent the new wave of direct-mail and telemarketing houses.

One of the RDI companies, Best Lists Inc., has stored in its data banks the names of nearly 4 million proven givers, available for rent, catalogued in lists with names like, “RDI Conservative Book Buyers,” “RDI Gun Owner Grand,” and “Active Defense Donors.”

“I can not only tell you where they live,” said Kanfer, “but I can tell you . . . how many kids they have, when their birthdays are, what (issues) they give on.”

In addition to conservative politicians like Dornan, Rep. William E. Dannemeyer (R-Fullerton), and Sen. Strom Thurmond (R-S.C.), Response Dynamics also has commercial clients. But Kunko and Kanfer acknowledge that politics is the work they like the best.

Dornan’s fund-raising letters are mailed to about 25,000 proven and potential givers in a carefully plotted strategy designed to maximize Dornan’s return while replenishing his pool of donors.

The bulk of the letters--about 13,000--are sent to tried and true Dornan contributors, people who have sent money in recent months. Another 2,000 are mailed to past givers who have not contributed recently. About 10,000 letters are devoted to what is known in the trade as “prospecting,” the most expensive type of direct-mail solicitation.

Despite its expense, prospecting for new donors is necessary, because as many as 20% of the names on a given donor list are likely to drop out over the course of a year. And an active donor list is the lifeblood of direct mail.

“It takes money to make money,” Kunko said. “You have to invest in that donor list.”

For its prospecting, the Dornan campaign rents, through RDI, lists of conservative givers. There are hundreds of potential lists for rent--from magazines and department stores, for example, as well as from RDI. The lists are selectively tested with onetime mailings to see how many new Dornan contributors they will yield.

From a rented list of 50,000 names, RDI might send Dornan fund-raising letters to 5,000 prospects. If significantly more than 1% respond, RDI knows it has latched onto a winning list. If the list looks exceptionally good, Dornan and the mail-house “roll out” the list by sending prospecting letters to another 10,000 or 20,000 people on it.

When one of those people sends back money to Dornan, the name becomes the property of the Dornan campaign, which adds it to the “house list” of regular Dornan contributors.

With this relentless cross-pollination of donor lists, it is not unusual for givers to be overwhelmed with requests for more and more money. Just ask Donald Benington, 69, a retired shoe factory worker from Norwich, N.Y., whose 91-year-old mother, Esther, was a contributor to Dornan and other conservative causes until she went into the hospital last July. In April alone, she gave Dornan three checks totaling $140.

“Some days there’s about 25 letters asking her for money,” Donald Benington said.

“She’s been getting letters from Col. (Oliver) North, all those people connected with him, Adm. (John) Poindexter (another RDI client), Mrs. Poindexter . . . George Bush, the President (on behalf of Dornan), and even Vice President Quayle’s father, asking for money,” he said.

“I’ve been trying to tell them that she’s 91 years old and wants her name taken off the lists.”

Whenever anyone makes such a request, Dornan said, his campaign honors it. In addition, he said, if a letter accompanying a gift makes it clear that the giver is frail and elderly, Dornan said his campaign will tell the donor he or she need not send any more money.

To maintain a good relationship with his donors, Dornan said, the campaign sends out a thank-you letter to everyone who gives. And the campaign answers all the personal letters that are enclosed with contributions, a practice that further adds to costs, Dornan said. But all that attention pays off.

Ruth N. Heaton, a 78-year-old widow who lives on a farm in Iowa, thinks the world of Dornan, and has given him $570 so far this year. She has never met the congressman face to face, but she speaks of him in a way that most people might speak of a close friend.

“I’ve known him for quite a while,” she said. “I’ve corresponded with him. I hear him on WMT in Cedar Rapids. . . . He’s a very smart man, I know that.”

She was introduced to Dornan and his politics, she said, through a letter she received in the mail. “He had heard of me, and he sent a picture of his whole family, a very nice-looking family,” Heaton explained. “He has several children, they’re all married, and I’ve seen his wife too. . . .

“I don’t know anything about the money part of it,” she said. “I do know he is a very hard worker in his job, but I don’t think he’s getting a lot of money.”

DORNAN’S MONEY MACHINE

Rep. Robert K. Dornan’s direct-mail operation is one of the most sophisticated ever seen on Capital Hill. But most of the money he raises is spent just to keep it going.

Dornan in 1988

Fund raising by the Viguerie Co.

Total raised: $557,713

Total spent on direct-mail fund raising: $462,852

Dornan in 1990

Fund raising by RDI

Total raised: $831,989

Total spent on direct-mail fund raising: $482,363

Total raised: $1,389,702

Fund-raising costs: $945,215

Source: Dornan campaign finance reports