Dornan’s Bully Boy Reaction to Adversary Is Revealing

When seven-term Congressman Bob Dornan goes nuts because an unknown candidate who’s never run for office decides to challenge him in the Republican primary, there’s got to be a reason.

Could it be that Dornan, who’s always his most amusing when he’s his most excitable, is getting downright edgy?

Could he be getting the feeling this is not a good year to be Bob Dornan, especially if your opponent just happens to be a Republican woman who favors abortion rights?

To review: Judith M. Ryan, a former Orange County Superior Court judge, announced last week that she will challenge Dornan in the 46th District. That coincided with an announcement by a new national Republican women’s group that it might support Ryan, because it wants more women in Congress and because Ryan favors abortion rights and Dornan doesn’t.

The new group, which calls itself WISH (Women in the Senate and House) said that it has raised about $100,000 in the past six weeks and that it might contribute to Ryan’s campaign.

When Dornan got wind of that, he showed up at a meeting Thursday night of congressional women and gave them a Dornanesque earful of what havoc he would wreak on anyone who supported an intraparty challenge to him.

The result was that the elected members in WISH recommended that the group adopt a rule saying it will not oppose a Republican incumbent.

WISH or WIMP?

If WISH is going to limit itself to supporting candidates only for open seats or those who challenge Democrats, it isn’t going to make much of a dent in the abortion-rights equation. And if WISH wants people in Congress who support contemporary women’s issues, it’s the Bob Dornans and Bill Dannemeyers that they should be trying to oust.

For her part, Ryan is pursuing her challenge of Dornan. It may not be as hopeless a cause as it sounds.

Let’s concede that no Democrat could beat Dornan in Orange County. A high-profile Republican man might be able to do it, but none will surface.

Dornan would have no compunction about unleashing his political fury on a fellow male Republican. As for a Democratic woman, he could attack on the issues.

But a Republican woman?

That’s the political combination that has all the earmarks of spelling trouble for Dornan, despite the million-dollar campaign fund he has accumulated while in office. What if the candidate were a relatively conservative woman who campaigned against the good ol’ boy network in Congress but who favors abortion rights?

Abortion rights won’t fly in Orange County, you say? A Times Poll taken in October showed that 58% of adults in the county believe that a woman should be able to get an abortion if she wants one. Counting only Republicans, 52% thought she should have the right.

The wild card, of course, is the level of discontent with incumbents--even ones with Dornan’s presumed popularity. Do people really want more women in Congress? Do they really want to break up the good ol’ boy network? Will hangovers from the Anita Hill-Clarence Thomas episode and the highly publicized rape trials and stories of sexual assaults and harassments translate into trouble this year for male incumbents? Will Dornan’s opposition to abortion cost him votes?

Stanlee Phelps, president of Women in Business, a local group of successful businesswomen, said she’s personally disappointed in WISH’s reaction to Dornan. Her organization isn’t political, so she stressed that she speaks for herself.

“It disappoints me that they backed down,” she said, “and I think it would be disappointing to other members” of her group.

Phelps said WISH must have anticipated that Dornan “would not jump for joy” over the prospect of a primary challenge. “I would have thought they would have put together some kind of contingency plan on how to deal with that confrontation if it came about, but I’m disappointed and a little surprised that they hadn’t really had a plan for that and also that they didn’t take a stand on that point. Why go through all the bother of putting together the effort if you’re not going to follow through?”

Katherine Spillar is national coordinator for the Feminist Majority, a women’s rights group with offices in Los Angeles, Boston and Washington. In recent weeks, she has been working on a project that encourages women to run in national and state legislative races. Ryan has been one of the women the group has encouraged.

Learning of Dornan’s reaction to WISH, Spillar said: “It must mean that the boys are very worried. And it’s not just the Republican crowd; it’s also the Democrats.”

She said other women in California have received what she described as politically “threatening” calls from local Democratic leaders who don’t want them to run against incumbents.

The major parties’ opposition to their own candidates, Spillar said, “just shows the extent to which they will go to protect their own. These are not coronations we have every two years; they’re supposed to be elections. Do we not have the right to have our own representatives in Congress?”

Spillar predicted that WISH would do an about-face on Ryan. “I just think they got bullied, and I think it’ll turn around,” she said.

Many of us wonder how different things would be if there were more than just the current two dozen women out of 435 in the House and two women in the 100-member Senate. Would the country be better governed? Would our priorities change?

One thing is certain: We’ll never find out if groups like WISH take a powder the first time some bully boy yells at them.