Dornan Coverage Inaccurate, Unfair

* About the Sept. 27 piece “Dornan May Run for Both White House, House in ‘96”: First, in all the myriad straw polls over the last eight months, I believe only once did I finish, as you report, “at the bottom of the pack.” There are always three or four trailing me, the valiant souls.

Second, notwithstanding your newspaper’s unending compulsion to seek out my critics, however insignificant the critic may be, a better news strategy might be to talk to persons who know the big picture. Rather than dredging up an Orange County Democrat “consultant” whom I’ve never heard of, your readers would have been better informed by Orange County Republican Party Chairman Tom Fuentes.

Allow me to solve your imagined “Dornan dilemma.” I remain an ardent supporter of congressional term limits. Not only did I co-author the first (1977) proposal limiting congressional terms, a variation unfortunately defeated this April, but I voted for every other version of term limits to come to the House floor. To resign my seat, without first having term limits on the books, is tantamount to turning over the very special 46th seat to a tax-consuming, abortion-loving, military-hating liberal--a mistake I assure you that I refuse to make under the present circumstances. I have never taken “a pledge” to unilaterally disarm. As a minority member, I anticipated my future and declared my ruminations publicly--always as a minority battler. But now I am one of only two double-chairmen out of 435 members. Politics, like life itself, is not a static endeavor. It is dynamic. Circumstances constantly change.

REP. ROBERT K. DORNAN

R-Garden Grove