In Washington, Dornan’s Foes Can Only Hope

It wasn’t so much what the White House spokesman said, but rather how his face lit up with an impish grin when asked about the apparent election defeat of President Clinton’s most acrimonious enemy, Orange County Rep. Robert K. Dornan.

“Is it true? Is it for sure? . . . Is there any chance he will rise up yet, phoenix-like?” spokesman Michael McCurry asked hopefully about the congressman who calls Clinton a “triple draft dodger,” “liar” and “womanizer.”

From the corridors of the Capitol to the president’s quarters, Democrats celebrated while Republicans kept a stunned silence as word spread early Wednesday that Dornan, a nine-term Garden Grove congressman and conservative icon, actually was losing his hard-fought battle with a political novice.

“He told people well before election day that he thought it was going to be close,” said a staffer for a high-ranking Republican. “But we thought he would come through,” just as he has so many times before.

Around the corner from the White House, at the National Press Club, a lobbyist for the largest gay rights group held up a tall spear, symbolizing a moment in Dornan’s political past when he referred to his opponents as “lesbian spear-chuckers.”

“This is in recognition of Bob Dornan saying that every lesbian feminist spear-chucker in the country was counting on his defeat,” said Daniel Zingale of the Human Rights Campaign during a news conference.

Earlier, behind the closed doors of a private dining room on Capitol Hill, about three dozen members of the House Democratic hierarchy broke into wild cheers when Minority Leader Richard A. Gephardt (D-Mo.) announced that Dornan appeared to be on the verge of losing to Loretta Sanchez, a 36-year-old businesswoman.

As the day wore on, however, Sanchez’s lead of 929 votes Tuesday was cut to 765, as absentee ballots were counted in Orange County. There are about 1,200 mail-in ballots and up to 3,000 provisional ballots from Dornan’s 46th District yet to be counted, according to the registrar of voters office.

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Democrats were as overjoyed by Dornan’s predicament as Republicans were two years ago when the Democrats lost control of the House for the first time in 40 years.

“It is a great victory,” said Rep. Martin Frost (D-Texas), chairman of the Democratic campaign committee that contributed $62,000 to Sanchez’s campaign. “Winning a seat in the heart of Orange County is very, very significant.”

Others, like Rep. Jane Harman (D-Rolling Hills), urged Dornan to accept defeat with dignity.

“He said he didn’t think Loretta Sanchez is qualified? That’s charming. People don’t like that,” she said. “People don’t like sore losers.”

In the middle of it all was a dejected Dornan staff, ensconced in its Longworth House Office Building suite, where remembrances of Dornan’s 18-year career line the walls: insignias of the military branches he oversees as a National Security subcommittee chairman; GOP presidential photographs; a poster celebrating the 50th anniversary of the World War II Normandy invasion.

The word “condolences” was murmured even as staffers tried to carry on with business as usual.

The reaction was a demonstration of the deep-rooted passions he evokes. His friends love him, his political enemies loathe him.

Republicans generally weren’t talking. A few sent terse statements via fax machines, vowing to help their fellow conservative warrior, who alleges voter fraud in his district, overturn the election results.

“I have every confidence that Bob Dornan will pull through. . . . Before deciding this race, we must conduct a vigorous examination of every ballot,” said Rep. Randy “Duke” Cunningham (R-San Diego).

Added Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-Huntington Beach) in a separate statement:

“The U.S. Congress and the D.A. should fully investigate charges of alien voting in order to get to the bottom of it. We will not sit blithely by until the truth comes out, especially if it is affecting our electoral process.”

House Speaker Newt Gingrich--though not always a Dornan ally--wasn’t talking. But a spokeswoman said Gingrich (R-Ga.) had asked the House Oversight Committee to begin looking at Dornan’s allegations that noncitizen voters may have cast ballots.

Tony Blankley, Gingrich’s chief spokesman, said, “There are routine people in Congress and a few people who are exceptional, and Bob Dornan is one of [the exceptional]. He has passion and conviction and a gift for rhetoric. He does irritate people sometimes.”

Democrats were those most often irritated by Dornan, who made a career of stridently opposing abortion, gay rights and other causes viewed as liberal.

During the 104th Congress, he interrupted for an hour House consideration of the mammoth transportation appropriations bill so that he could continue a political tirade against Rep. Steve Gunderson (R-Wis.), who was then the only openly gay Republican member of Congress.

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The life partners of Gunderson and gay Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) held a fund-raiser in Washington on Sanchez’s behalf.

“He’s the most homophobic member of Congress,” Frank said. “I can think of only 10 [Republican] members that had confidence he was emotionally together. Republicans were embarrassed by him.”

David M. Smith, spokesman for the Human Rights Campaign Fund, the largest gay and lesbian advocacy group, said, “It was clear over the last few weeks that B-1 Bob was losing altitude. What is clear today is that B-1 Bob has crashed and the world is a safer place.”