Dornan Relents and Won’t Challenge Rohrabacher

In an abrupt turnabout, Rep. Robert K. Dornan announced Thursday that he will run for reelection in a proposed Santa Ana congressional district and abandon plans to challenge conservative soul mate Rep. Dana Rohrabacher in a Republican primary next June.

The decision came after Dornan said he talked Thursday night with close friends, who appealed to his Republican loyalty, and Rohrabacher’s mother, who appealed to his heart.

Dornan shocked Republican leaders in California and Washington Sunday when he said he would seek a proposed Huntington Beach congressional district seat that had already been claimed by Rohrabacher. The move would have left a vacancy in Orange County’s only congressional district with a Democratic majority.

The intensity of the showdown grew throughout the week as the two incumbents met for two days in Washington and still appeared intransigent. By Thursday afternoon, Rohrabacher had scheduled a press conference for today, during which he planned to take Dornan on.

Late Thursday, however, Dornan blinked. The 15-year congressman said he was talked out of the showdown by his former chief of staff, Brian Bennett, who had already announced his plan to run for the Santa Ana district if Dornan didn’t. He said he also called Rohrabacher’s mother, Doris, in Temecula, before he changed his mind.

“Brian Bennett called me and told me to put the party first. . . . He knew my Achilles heel,” Dornan said in a telephone interview from his home in Washington. “But Dana’s mother was the lovely straw on this Republican workhorse camel’s back.”

Dornan’s wife, Sally, who was also on the phone, added: “The bottom line is that no matter what’s written about Bob, he has a marshmallow heart.”

“Wait a minute,” Dornan interrupted. “Don’t destroy my B-1 image.”

Dornan said Rohrabacher’s mother asked that he call her “Fluff” and added that she is a big supporter of his. “I said, please call me Bob, Fluff.”

Doris Rohrabacher said Thursday night that she could not take credit for talking Dornan out of the contest.

“I didn’t have much to say at all,” she said. “It’s none of my business. I just talked to him for a few minutes and told him that our 50th wedding anniversary was next year.”

Her son was enthusiastic in his praise for Dornan after the announcement, adding that he thought Dornan would have beaten him in the primary but that he didn’t see any other district where he could run successfully.

“It is going to be a joyous Christmas,” Rohrabacher said. “There is nothing that Bob Dornan could do for the rest of his life where I won’t be his friend.”

Rohrabacher said he believes Dornan changed his mind after he told him that his father, a World War II Marine Corps veteran, and his mother would suffer if their son’s career was threatened by a primary. “I think he took that to heart,” Rohrabacher said.

The sophomore congressman added that he learned of the decision just after 6 p.m. when Dornan called him and simply suggested that he talk to his mother, who told him the news.

“This is the ultimate Dornan style,” he said. “Everybody says Dornan has a big ego, and I’ll tell everybody he has a big heart, too.”

Dornan is now planning to run for reelection in the proposed 46th Congressional District, which includes much of his current district, as well as the cities of Santa Ana, Garden Grove and part of Anaheim. The dispute was over the proposed 45th district in one of the most affluent and solidly Republican areas of California, stretching along Orange County’s coast from Newport Beach to the Los Angeles County line.

The proposed maps for new congressional districts in California were released earlier this month by the California Supreme Court’s special masters. The maps are not scheduled for final adoption until late next month and could still be modified. But many lawmakers are already using the unofficial lines to plan their campaigns.

Dornan’s announcement ended five days of worry among top Republican leaders--including major contributors, House colleagues and party officials--who have appealed to both men out of concern that the GOP could lose at least one incumbent and also jeopardize control of a central Orange County district.

Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-Coronado) mediated talks between the two on Tuesday and Wednesday that included calls to political pollsters, local party officials and even Dornan’s wife. But after the meetings broke up, sources said neither lawmaker appeared to give any serious thought to backing off.

Before Dornan’s announcement, Rep. Christopher Cox (R-Newport Beach) said Thursday evening: “So far, all systems look go for a Dornan-Rohrabacher primary. There is no indication that either (congressman) . . . is backing away from the commitment and the news conference will undoubtedly confirm that fact.”

Throughout the talks, Dornan said he believed that Rohrabacher could have abandoned the proposed 45th district and run for a seat in the South Bay area of Los Angeles County, which also overlaps part of Rohrabacher’s current district.

“It is gorgeous,” Dornan said. “Dana absolutely could take that.”

But Rohrabacher said--after announcing that he would run in Huntington Beach--that he faced a difficult primary for the South Bay seat, possibly against former President Ronald Reagan’s daughter, Maureen.

Both Dornan and Rohrabacher currently represent roughly a third of the proposed 45th district in Huntington Beach, as does Cox. But none of the three incumbents lives in the district.

The experience was a nightmare for many Republican leaders. The anticipated contest between two incumbent congressmen from the same wing of the Republican Party would have been a mammoth test of fund-raising skills and loyalties. The American Conservative Union, which rates Washington lawmakers, gives nearly identical marks to Dornan and Rohrabacher.

Early speculators had suggested that Dornan had the edge because he has been in Congress for 15 years, compared to Rohrabacher’s three, and in the past he has been one of Washington’s biggest fund-raisers. Neither congressman faced a serious challenger last year, but Dornan still raised $1.45 million to Rohrabacher’s $400,000.