Democratic Effort to Unseat Dornan Suffers Setback : Politics: The second-place finisher in the party’s primary says he will run as a write-in candidate, a move that likely will help the incumbent congressman.

The Democratic Party’s campaign to defeat Rep. Robert K. Dornan (R-Garden Grove) ran into complications Wednesday when the second-place finisher in the primary said he would run as a write-in candidate in November.

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Democrat Robert J. Banuelos, who for the last two years has introduced himself as the man who nearly defeated Dornan in the 1992 election, said he feels compelled to run because of his dissatisfaction with Dornan and Mike Farber, a businessman who won the Democratic nomination in the June 7 primary.

“I have been involved in the district since 1986. I didn’t just move here to run,” Banuelos said, referring to both Farber and Dornan, who is seeking his ninth term to Congress and his sixth in the central Orange County district.

Farber was in Washington Wednesday and was unavailable for comment. But his campaign issued a two-sentence statement that read: “We must unify all communities behind the Democratic Party and work toward the goals important to all of us. We must work together to bring responsible representation back to Orange County . . . which begins with the retirement of Bob Dornan.”

Ann Marie Piring, the executive director of the Democratic Foundation of Orange County, was angered by Banuelos’ announcement and conceded it could hurt the efforts to defeat Dornan.

Banuelos “is out for his own glorification,” she said. “If he were a true Democrat, he would respect the (primary) voters who chose Mike Farber instead of a do-nothing.”

Banuelos, who explained his reasons for his write-in candidacy to a White House political staffer during a meeting in Santa Ana last Saturday, said he expected Democrats would accuse him of disrupting party unity.

“Where was party unity in 1992 when I won the primary and the district had been targeted” by Democrats? Banuelos said. “I asked for assistance, and I asked for help and it was not there. I was left out there to flounder on my own.”

Banuelos said he was not attempting the write-in candidacy to settle a score with the Democratic Party for the way it handled his 1992 campaign, but “for the voters that came out and voted for me.”

Dornan, who can only benefit if Banuelos cuts into Democratic support for Farber, said he can “understand the statement (Banuelos) is trying to make” in light of the party leadership’s rejection of his 1992 candidacy.

“I think he was treated shabbily (by Democratic Party leaders), especially if he carried the banner one year,” Dornan said.

Responding to Banuelos’ claim that he is the only candidate who did not move to the district just to run for Congress, Dornan said that unlike Farber, he was invited by his party to run in Orange County. He purchased a home in the district immediately after his election to establish roots in the community. Dornan also listed numerous public works projects he helped fund for the district as a demonstration of his commitment.

Finding itself being attacked on two fronts, the Farber campaign said that the Democratic nominee “has lived in the district two years, which is two years longer than Bob Dornan has actually spent in the district in the last 10.”

In the 1992 election, Dornan received just over 50% of the vote, compared to 41% for Banuelos and almost 9% for the Libertarian candidate, Richard G. Newhouse, who is running again in November.

Local Democratic Party leaders conceded after the 1992 election that they had missed an opportunity to defeat Dornan and immediately organized the “Beat Bob” committee for the 1994 election. Democrats hold a six-point voter registration edge over Republicans in the district, which includes Santa Ana, Anaheim and Garden Grove.

Part of the reason Banuelos’ candidacy was not taken seriously in 1992 was that he ran a low-key campaign, spending only about $8,000 for the primary and general elections.

This year, Banuelos spent less than $5,000 in the primary campaign compared to the roughly $180,000 by Farber.

Farber won the primary by only 207 votes.

Although he has had trouble raising money in the past, Banuelos said he hopes to raise $500,000 for his write-in campaign.

The last successful write-in campaign for an Orange County legislative seat was in 1982, when Rep. Ron Packard (R-Carlsbad) won his congressional seat.

The official filing period for write-in campaigns for the November election runs from Sept. 12 through Oct. 25.