Clinton Foes Enlist Dornan in Assault on White House : Politics: The vitriolic O.C. congressman has become a shock trooper for conservative crusaders nationwide.

The message that came to Rep. Robert K. Dornan’s office last summer sounded like it was from a secret agent.

“This is No. 5, calling No. 6,” it said.

Dornan (R-Garden Grove) was puzzled until he checked the phone number left by the caller and found that it was from Little Rock, Ark. A ha, it must be Cliff Jackson, an old college buddy of President Clinton’s who ranked fifth on a nationally published list of the top 10 White House enemies. Dornan was ranked sixth.

When the two men met a few weeks later at a Riverside restaurant, Jackson confided that he was representing several Arkansas state troopers who claimed first-hand knowledge of the President’s womanizing while he was governor.

Dornan’s instructions were to keep the story secret, because Jackson said he expected it would break soon in the national media. But just in case, Dornan was to be the “insurance policy” who would guarantee the story got exposure.

“I knew that Bob Dornan was a walking time bomb and all I had to do was light the fuse,” Jackson said recently. “Given his reputation for . . . telling it like it is, I felt there was no chance at all that he would be intimidated.”

Dornan has to give President Clinton some of the credit for his newfound national profile as a leading spokesman for the White House antagonists. He has long been one of Washington’s most tenacious and vitriolic crusaders for conservative causes--anti-communism, anti-taxes, anti-abortion.

But now, with a Democrat in the White House and a series of scandals as ammunition, Dornan has locked onto his target like a guided missile. Sometimes the attacks come on late-night C-Span broadcasts as Dornan rails against the President in red-faced speeches to an empty House of Representatives. Or they come when Dornan fills in as the regular guest host for Rush Limbaugh’s nationally broadcast radio show, where recently he spent three days attacking the President for everything from extramarital sex to health care, taxes, the deficit and the Whitewater investigation.

“People know, if nobody else will raise the issue, he will,” said Paul Weyrich, president of the conservative National Empowerment Television in Washington.

Today, Dornan is at his suburban Virginia home struggling with a career decision. He has yet to announce whether he will run for a ninth term in Congress. Instead, at age 60, Dornan said he is considering whether to quit and run for the U.S. Senate or launch a career as a radio talk show host.

He has also traveled to New Hampshire, home of the nation’s first presidential primary, to test the waters for a possible White House campaign in 1996.

Dornan hopes to make a decision this week. But whatever his choice, he promises his next job will provide a strategic position from which he can continue his barrage against the Clinton Administration.

“I’ve got a career choice to come up with here that is so difficult because there is so much action in D.C. now,” Dornan said in an interview. “I’ve got to think about the big picture--what is good for me serving my country.”

As far as history goes, it has yet to be determined whether Dornan will be remembered as being famous or infamous. The attention he receives is only partly due to his criticism of the President. It is also largely because of his talent as a showman and his flair for the outrageous.

White House counsel Vince Foster didn’t just commit suicide, Dornan told his national radio audience: “He blew his brains out July 20th over here in Marcy Park, standing next to an old Civil War cannon.”

The White House staff isn’t just misleading people, Dornan told his listeners, “they are paid with your tax dollars to destroy the truth, rip the truth, deceive you, manipulate . They are totally unfamiliar with the truth. These are spin doctors who know the truth and are trying to protect their boss.”

And Dornan doesn’t simply charge that Clinton had extramarital affairs. He has elaborated the charges with details of alleged sexual encounters.

Critics complain that he is Howard Stern Goes to Washington, a congressional shock jock. Even supporters say they can’t believe some of the things he says.

“He’s a form of entertainment for a lot of people,” said Bob Nelson, a Dornan critic and Republican political consultant who served on the Clinton transition team. “There are incredible parallels to Bob Dornan’s style and rhetoric and former Wisconsin Sen. Joseph McCarthy. The whole red-baiting, mudslinging, guilt by association tactics are part of the everyday activities of Bob Dornan.”

Last month, as Dornan guest-hosted the Rush Limbaugh radio show at the same time the state troopers’ story was breaking, an elderly woman named Mary from Lynchburg, Va., called to scold the congressman.

Bob?

Yes’m.

You know what? If I was your mama I would come give you a slap on the head or send you to bed without supper because you are bringing no class to the conservative party. . . . Do you know if I were a budding conservative, I would be turned off by you. Now I’m calling from the hometown of Jerry Falwell, and he is very much a conservative. . . .

Oh, I know.

But I’m sure he is not approving of what you are doing to the Clinton Administration. He’s the President of the United States. . . .

All right now, Mary, I understand completely your thoughts and your challenge. I said yesterday there’s a tabloid aspect to all of this.

Very much.

But it’s been because Bill Clinton has lived a tabloid life. So it’s tough. Now all of the papers have vindicated me. This is a headline all across the country. I didn’t do that, but it is.

But it’s not, Bob. I dispute that. I’m here, I’m watching the talk shows.

Now wait a minute, Mary. . . . I was raised on George Washington and Gen. Douglas MacArthur. My mother would be calling into radio shows. She’s watching from heaven and I’ll tell you, she’d be proud of me because she raised me this way.

Publicly, the White House dismisses Dornan as a kook who is more humorous than harmful. But as Clinton has learned, problems don’t always arrive through mainstream channels.

Tom Epstein, Clinton’s California director at the White House, said he has ignored Dornan and is not aware of his most recent accusations.

“The guy is annoying and he’s clever and he’s going to get attention,” Epstein said. “But we have to keep our eyes on the prize--getting our important legislation passed--and Dornan is not a huge impediment to that.”

Epstein added, however, that if a credible candidate could be found to challenge Dornan, the White House would “do as much as we could to help.” Three Democrats have entered the race for Dornan’s 46th Congressional District seat, and their campaigns are still developing.

“We’d love to see him defeated,” Epstein said.

Whether people dismiss his comments or not, Dornan clearly has access to a lot of listeners. And in politics, the ability to communicate equals power.

In addition to his national exposure on C-Span and the Rush Limbaugh program, Dornan has maintained a nationwide mailing network of supporters who have made him one of the top fund-raisers in Washington.

Last year, his campaign war chest was among the 10 largest in Congress, and he was the only candidate to make the list with less than 5% of his contributions from political action committees. In the first six months of 1993, an off-election year, Dornan raised more than $260,000, most of it in small contributions and little of it from his district.

David Mason, director of the Congressional Project at the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank, said the measure of Dornan’s influence is not whether he appeals to mainstream America. Instead, he said, Dornan should be evaluated as a conservative leader and his national influence would depend on the power of conservative voters.

“It’s no surprise that liberals would be dismissive of him,” he said. “But clearly he is a national leader among Republicans. He’s not up there with (Kansas Sen.) Bob Dole and (Georgia Rep.) Newt Gingrich, but definitely he is right behind them.”

Dornan launched his first attack against Clinton during the presidential campaign in the summer of 1992. He raised questions about why Clinton would tour Moscow in 1969 when most college students would be expected to vacation at more popular sites in Europe. He also suggested that it is likely the KGB would have tried to recruit Clinton while he was in Russia.

“The American people deserve to know why he went to Moscow during the height of the Vietnam War and what he did there and with whom he met,” Dornan charged a month before the election.

Dornan had strong ties to former President George Bush. He was the first major conservative leader to endorse the then-vice president when Bush won the presidency in 1988, and Dornan campaigned for him around the country then and in 1992. The congressman said he urged Bush in private meetings to question Clinton on the Moscow trip.

“The thought makes me sick to have this son of a bitch of such low character commanding this country,” Dornan said. “Those are my exact words I said to the President.”

In early October, Bush suggested on Larry King’s CNN talk show that Clinton should “level with the American people” about his Moscow visit.

Dornan’s profile as leader of the charge against the Clinton White House has sometimes made his office a clearinghouse for sources with tips or rumors about the President.

Jackson, the attorney representing the Arkansas state troopers, said he also turned to Dornan because of his reputation.

The troopers contacted Jackson last summer as they sought help in releasing their story about claims that Clinton had frequent extramarital affairs.

Jackson passed the information to the Los Angeles Times and the American Spectator, a conservative publication in Washington, and both published the information in December.

But during the fall, Jackson said he and the troopers feared that their lives might be threatened because of their accusations against the President. Dornan was to be the “insurance policy” in case anything happened to them.

Jackson said he took a risk in going to Dornan because of the congressman’s reputation for hyperbole and his attack-dog tactics. If the story came from Dornan, Jackson was concerned that it might be dismissed. “On the other hand, you don’t want an insurance policy with a namby-pamby politician,” he said.

“Dornan is outspoken. He is not cowed. He expresses things in terms that are quite explosive,” Jackson said. “He coalesces the feelings of those who are already predisposed (against Clinton), while at the same time it may alienate those who would listen to a more moderate approach. . . . He does play a role, depending on your perspective in the American process.”