Decrying ‘Decay,’ Dornan Begins White House Bid

Positioning himself as the conservative who can best defend America against “moral decay,” Rep. Robert K. Dornan formally entered the race for the 1996 GOP presidential nomination on Thursday.

Flanked by his family, Dornan, 62, called on his Republican opponents to focus on social issues because “moral decay is rotting the heart and the soul of our country.”

Dornan’s rambling announcement was delivered before the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial to symbolize the “war on crime,” a key plank of his campaign. Society’s increasing violence, he said, is linked to a “cultural meltdown” and he is intent on steering the Republican debate to the hard right on “pro-family” social issues.

But as he highlighted a conservative social agenda, the nine-term congressman--long known for his attacks on the House floor against abortion, gay rights and President Clinton--tried to downplay his bombastic image.

“Here’s one congressman that has never yelled at his staff; tried to motivate my children by example, not by harshness; that has never in subcommittee or committee or at a press conference ever showed anything but passion,” Dornan said.

“On the floor of the House. . . , yes, I’ve been tough. . . . I apologize for nothing,” conceded the Garden Grove congressman, his voice, soft at first, growing more forceful as he continued.

“But I will tell you that if . . . somebody is not publicly indignant and saying, ‘Stop this,’ with our cultural meltdown and moral decline, then I’ll show you somebody who doesn’t understand the facts,” Dornan added. “I’ll show you somebody who’s a bystander watching the destruction of our country.”

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Invoking his campaign theme: “Faith, Family, Freedom,” Dornan, surrounded by about 150 supporters, dedicated his campaign to his friends who died in the Vietnam War. He was a fighter pilot during peacetime.

With a fledgling campaign organization that includes volunteers from the failed 1994 U.S. Senate campaign of Iran-Contra figure Oliver L. North in Virginia, and a direct-mail fund-raising effort just getting under way, Dornan’s candidacy is considered a long shot by conventional standards.

Few Republicans expect that Dornan can pierce the organizational and political support already gathered by Kansas Sen. Bob Dole or the financial war chest amassed by Texas Sen. Phil Gramm.

But Dornan’s passionate and vocal beliefs could force debate on many social issues that divide Republicans, such as abortion and school prayer, a public argument that many within the party’s hierarchy hope to avoid.

On abortion, for example, both Dole and Gramm have downplayed the issue. And moderate Republicans are threatening to remove the anti-abortion plank from the party platform at its nominating convention next year in San Diego.

But Dornan, who opposes abortion, has threatened to be a “truth squad of one” against California Gov. Pete Wilson, another potential rival, because of his abortion-rights stand and other issues.

And Dornan’s sharp rhetoric--which his critics term irresponsible--could cause embarrassment for his opponents. Already, he has been quoted as accusing Gramm of being a “Vietnam draft evader”--a statement that he said was taken out of context.

“Some (voters) say, ‘Oh, geez, Bob Dornan,’ and then other people say, ‘God, I can’t wait to see Dornan,’ ” said Charles M. Arlinghaus, the GOP’s executive director in New Hampshire, the site of the first primary in 1996.

“He’s a little bombastic, I’m sure, but in New Hampshire, in a presidential race, everybody is scrutinized and no one is dismissed out of hand or accepted out of hand,” Arlinghaus said. “A candidate like that, who is very aggressive about where he stands on the issues . . . will attract a following.”

Dornan said that “winning is not everything. I’m in it to try and win, but it’s not everything.”

However, he also called on Republican voters to “keep your powder dry, keep your options open, look at all of us.”

He claimed to have the “best” attributes of all of the GOP candidates and spoke of the “sheer honor and humbling spirit of even beginning the quest” for his party’s presidential nomination.

Dornan is the seventh candidate in the still-growing GOP field. In addition to Dole and Gramm, others who officially have entered the presidential campaign are former Tennessee Gov. Lamar Alexander, commentator Patrick J. Buchanan, radio talk show host Alan Keyes, and Pennsylvania Sen. Arlen Specter.

Indiana Sen. Richard G. Lugar is scheduled to formally join the race next week. Wilson’s formal announcement date has not been set.

Dornan admiringly acknowledged Dole as the front-runner but claimed that the Kansas senator had borrowed a page from the Dornan playbook earlier this week when Dole attacked the Hollywood Establishment.

“We have a debased culture in Hollywood that ridicules and assaults religion, tears valor and hope and virtue out of our country,” Dornan said.

He decried “children shooting children, pornography, the filth on the soap operas, the filth on the talk shows, the filth and blasphemous language, the debasement of our language on all of the situation comedies and on all of the TV movies, on cable television.”

Absent from the passionate announcement speech were specific proposals he will advance on the campaign trail. He noted, however, that he supported a “flat” income tax proposal (which would set one tax rate for all taxpayers) long before Specter and voted against the establishment of the Education Department before it became one of Alexander’s talking points. The congressman also belittled Gramm’s conservatism, noting that Gramm lobbied him to vote for the 1990 tax increase that led to President George Bush’s defeat.

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Gramm spokesman Gary Koops downplayed Dornan’s effort to push the debate further to the right. “I am not sure that has any relevance to our strategy or message,” Koops said. Dornan “will be another conservative in what is, for the most part, a conservative Republican field.”

Beverly La Haye, founder of Concerned Women for America, one of the larger social conservative groups, said that while Dornan can be expected to be strong on “pro-family” issues, that may not be enough to win. Credibility on other points, such as balancing the budget, will determine a successful candidate, she added.

“I am watching very carefully. I am trying to document those that are backing up that (pro-family) message,” La Haye said. “But I think there has to be a good balance (with other issues) so that it is not lopsided.”

As a demonstration of his religious conservative principles, Dornan’s presidential announcement tour will include a stop on Sunday at St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New York City, where he and his wife, Sallie, will renew their wedding vows on their 40th wedding anniversary.

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Profile: Robert Kenneth Dornan

Birth Date: April 3, 1933

Education: Loyola University from 1951 to 1953, dropped out to serve in the Air Force from 1953-1958.

Career: TV and radio producer, broadcaster and talk show host from 1965 to 1976. U.S. House 1978-82, 1984-present. Ran unsuccessfully for U.S. Senate in 1982.

Family: Wife Sallie Hansen Dornan, five children and nine grandchildren.