O.C. Democrats’ ‘BeatBob’ Died Trying, but Spirit Lives

BeatBob Inc., a political campaign dreamed up by two Irvine media consultants and later embraced by Orange County Democrats to unseat the Republican congressman they call “Bad Bob” Dornan, died a quiet death.

Born in June, 1993, amid Disneyland dazzle and Hollywood hoopla, the BeatBob campaign was created to amass a $300,000 war chest to attract a viable Democratic candidate against Dornan. Its chief fund-raising tool was to be a videotape compilation of the fiery Garden Grove Republican’s most inflammatory speeches.

But despite its untimely death following the June primary--after having raised only about $50,000--BeatBob’s ghost lives on. Its spirit has been kept alive by an anti-Dornan book being hawked by the media consultants, Mike Kaspar and John Simon, and by Dornan himself, who has propped up BeatBob as a national threat in order to raise money for his own reelection campaign.

About the only one not benefiting from the late BeatBob campaign is Dornan’s Democratic opponent in the Nov. 8 election, Mike Farber, who is considered by some of his own party members as a long shot to unseat the eight-term incumbent.

In life, BeatBob did provide a brief rally for the Democrats, and proponents claim they succeeded in at least calling attention to Dornan’s perceived political foibles. And despite its demise, the Democrats are not conceding the election to Dornan, noting that Farber isn’t pulling any punches in his aggressive campaign for Dornan’s 46th Congressional District seat.

Last Saturday, Farber unleashed the first in a series of “hit” mailers designed to raise questions about Dornan’s “moral character.”

The BeatBob effort also worked to the benefit of Dornan. Beginning with an “emergency memorandum” fund-raising letter earlier this year that elevated the threat of BeatBob, and culminating with an Orange County fund-raiser this week featuring former President George Bush, Dornan has played BeatBob like a pied piper leading a parade of dollar signs.

“I never really felt annoyed because we proceeded to make money off of it,” Dornan says. “We have raised hundreds of thousands of dollars. They only raised the $40,000 and then it went for expenses.”

The congressman gloats over his success. “(Democrats) didn’t see the expression on my face when we passed the million-dollar point” in fund-raising, he says.

Dornan is only partly right, says Howard Adler, the former Orange County Democratic Party chairman who took on the fund-raising project. He argues that in firing at Dornan, BeatBob made the congressman flinch--he reacted to the campaign and consequently gave credibility to the Democratic effort to defeat him.

“Dornan is very good when he has a visible enemy, and he used (BeatBob) in his fund-raising,” Adler concedes. “Bob Dornan was a benefit to the Democratic Party, and BeatBob was a target for Bob Dornan.

“But you know what? All of this has made the effort against Dornan more credible than it would have been. Bob Dornan made BeatBob more credible than it was.”

The fact of the matter is, Adler says, BeatBob ultimately ran out of steam because he was stricken with a life-threatening neurological disease that forced him to step aside during the crucial start-up months. Without Adler piloting the fund-raising end, the campaign went into a tailspin shortly after its takeoff.

In the beginning, though, the chance to force Dornan into retirement never looked as good to Democrats as it did in early 1993.

Dornan had won reelection the previous year after garnering only 50.2% of the vote against Robert John Banuelos, a little-known, cash-poor Democratic candidate. It was the third election in a row that Dornan’s winning percentage had declined.

The 1992 election also had provided a morale boost for the chronically underdog Orange County Democratic Party because of a handful of prominent local Republicans who had dropped their support for President Bush in favor of Democrat Bill Clinton. Janice Johnson--wife of then-Western Digital CEO Roger W. Johnson, one of the Republican defectors--would eventually lend her name to the BeatBob campaign.

And the Democrats had what they believed was the best fund-raising tool of all--Dornan himself.

During his 1992 primary contest against Judith M. Ryan, a moderate Republican who received funding from national women’s groups, Dornan had remarked that “every lesbian spear-chucker in America is hoping I get defeated.” Dornan handily won the primary, but the comment caused a stir and was added to the collection of quotes being compiled by Kaspar and Simon. (Dornan later amended that statement. “I meant to say ‘spear carrier,’ and everyone knows that.”)

Kaspar and Simon remember having a brainstorm a week after the November, 1992, election: to produce a series of 30-second, anti-Dornan television spots that could air in his district, even before the ’94 election season was underway. “We thought we could beat Dornan just by using his own quotes,” Simon remembers.

The duo took the idea to Adler and others who expanded the concept. They came up with a gimmick to sell “shares” and issue stock certificates for BeatBob Inc.--their enterprise to raise $300,000 through the sale of an eight-minute videotape highlighting Dornan’s antics.

Privately, key Democrats hoped that the money would entice a strong Democratic candidate to run against Dornan in 1994--such as Assemblyman Tom Umberg (D-Garden Grove).

Expectations were high in June, 1993, when the BeatBob campaign was unveiled at Disneyland. Tony Rodham, the brother of First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton, and television stars David Clennon (of “thirtysomething”’ fame) and former “Charlie’s Angel” Shelley Hack all spoke of their determination to retire Dornan from public office. A copy of the videotape landed on the desk of President Clinton.

But within weeks of the kickoff, Adler became ill, leaving the fund-raising effort without a leader. And Umberg decided to run for state attorney general instead.

Last February, Kaspar reintroduced the videotape at the county Democratic Party convention, and BeatBob “trading cards” were distributed at the state party meeting in Los Angeles. But the campaign was listless.

As he recovered from his illness, Adler says, he turned his attention away from BeatBob and toward Farber’s campaign, which was running into rough waters before the June primary.

“I was afraid that if Farber did not win the primary, everything we had set up (with BeatBob) would be lost with another weak campaign,” Adler says.

Once the primary was over and Farber was the Democratic nominee, BeatBob Inc. was relegated to the political graveyard.

Adler says that the meager funds remaining in the BeatBob account were used by the local Democratic Party for a voter registration drive in central Orange County. It is in that area where Democrats hope to be competitive in four legislative districts--including Dornan’s--in the November election.

Dornan maintains that BeatBob Inc. failed because it violated the basic economic law of “supply and demand”--the Democrats tried to sell BeatBob stock where there was no demand to get rid of him, he says.

“In politics, you live by your record, and my record is clean, and they are getting an ulcer getting a handle on me,” Dornan boasts.

Adler says Dornan is wrong: Democrats did not have trouble raising money off Dornan.

“He was a lightning rod. . . . I think it got off to a roaring success,” Adler says. “Due to my health, and ultimately the (Farber) campaign catching up, it kind of drifted away.”

Farber never fully embraced the BeatBob concept and never considered continuing it after he won the June primary, although he concedes “it was a good idea. It was a way to raise money in the district to register voters, that’s all.”

Kaspar and Simon, meanwhile, have become “Dornanologists,” appearing recently on CNBC’s “Posner/Donahue Show” and radio talk shows to sell their book, “Shut Up Fag!” which made use of the many hours of research they had not been able to include in the videotape and trading cards. The title was taken from a comment made by Dornan’s wife, Sallie.

Their own campaign is against Dornan, but they don’t mention the Farber candidacy or BeatBob.

“We (in Orange County) have gotten used to Dornan and have accepted him, but as he goes around the country, people will not accept him,” Kaspar says in defense of their book.

Simon echoes the sentiment. “No matter what happens after Nov. 8, the book is still going to be around.”