Dornan Pitches Self as 'True Latino'

By ESTHER SCHRADER

Oct. 10, 1998 12 AM PT

TIMES STAFF WRITER

Walking the streets of Santa Ana’s barrios and sprinkling his speeches with broken Spanish, Robert K. Dornan is out to do what his foes say he can’t: woo Latino voters away from U.S. Rep. Loretta Sanchez.

The Garden Grove Republican has opened a satellite campaign office in Santa Ana to help him win a chunk of the largely Catholic Latino vote. Last month, he peppered the central Orange County district with his first major mailer of the fall campaign: an image of the Virgin of Guadalupe on the cover with graphic portrayals of abortion procedures inside.

“I’m the only true Latino in this race,” Dornan has taken to saying, contending that his Catholic upbringing and emphasis on family values give him more in common with Latino voters than Sanchez (D-Garden Grove) has. The congresswoman’s Mexican American heritage helped her pick up overwhelming Latino backing two years ago, but she veers away from Catholic orthodoxy in her support of a woman’s right to choose abortion.

Democrats chortle at the idea of Dornan going for the Latino vote. In Congress, he voted against many of the social and educational programs that tens of thousands of Latinos in his district rely on.

And many Latinos aren’t taking kindly to Dornan’s overtures, especially the mailer depicting one of Mexico’s most revered saints next to images many consider offensive.

“I threw it in the trash immediately,” said Alejandro Hernandez, a Chilean-born businessman who lives in Santa Ana with his wife and young daughter. “I said, ‘You know what? You’re playing to an emotion. You’re not playing to me as a voter. You’re saying all Latinos fit this mold of traditional family, traditional large number of kids, traditionally very religious.’ But it’s not that anymore for a lot of us. . . . Latinos come in all colors and sizes.”

Dornan himself could undermine his effort to appeal to Latinos by continuing to warn about voter fraud, an accusation Latinos say is targeted at them.

But the challenger and his Republican allies believe the new tactic can work. Dornan figures that he can win if he can pick up even a fraction of the Latino vote by appealing to Latino Catholics on hot-button issues such as abortion and still maintain support among Republican whites.

Dornan has “all this other baggage that may make this strategy unworkable, but he’s got to try to appeal to Latino voters,” said Gary Jacobson, a political scientist at UC San Diego.

“It’s recognizing that when you go hunting, you go where the ducks are. Suddenly, these people are voting, and they’re not voting for him, and he wants to see if he can get some of those votes himself.”

Setting Sights on 5% of the Latino Vote

Dornan isn’t the only Republican politician making a play for Latino votes this year. This spring, the GOP started making a concerted effort statewide to end its estrangement from the Latino community. According to state voter registration data, 64% of registered voters with Latino surnames are Democrats. Just 19.5% are Republicans.

Dornan figures that just 5% of the Latino vote could win him back the 46th Congressional District seat he lost two years ago by 984 votes. Latino surnamed residents make up 23% of registered voters in the district, a larger percentage than any other minority ethnic group.

To pick up enough Latino support, Dornan has a long road ahead. Two years ago, Sanchez won in all but three precincts in which Latinos were a majority, according to research done for The Times by political analyst Dick Lewis of Newport Beach.

Sanchez has kept her attention on Latinos and her district, making it tougher on Dornan to cut into her base. She has traveled home from Washington more than 80 times, appearing at a broad range of events from Santa Ana community fiestas to union barbecues.

Dornan also has to overcome Latino animosity over his fierce campaign to regain his seat, a battle in which he alleged that hundreds of noncitizens, mainly Latinos, voted illegally. An investigation into the charges by the House Oversight Committee found that more than 700 votes were cast improperly, not enough to overturn the election.

The challenge was widely perceived by Latinos as an affront. Hundreds rallied to defend Sanchez.

Dornan’s current effort to bring Latinos to his side with such mailers as the Virgin of Guadalupe brochure smacks of hypocrisy, say his foes.

“Maybe he thinks that’s a clever way of gaining sympathy from a particular ethnic group, but I think it’s patronizing,” Rep. Esteban Edward Torres (D-Pico Rivera) said. “I think it’s ludicrous of him to attempt this in that he has acknowledged [the Latino] threat when he tried to disqualify so many of them from voting.”

Sanchez spokesman Lee Godown called Dornan’s mailer “bad strategy.”

“I don’t think you convince people you’re for family values when you denigrate a revered saint of the Catholic Church by printing her likeness on a mailing that has some pretty disgusting pictures on the inside,” Godown said.

“He’s describing himself as the true Latino and demonstrating it by making a mockery of a saint? He’s getting real bad advice from whoever’s advising him.”

Poll Shows Sanchez Ahead by 15 Points

Two independent polls by Chapman University show that Sanchez has a sizable lead over Dornan. The first poll, in June, showed Sanchez ahead by 21 percentage points. The margin shrank to 15 points in Chapman’s second poll, released Tuesday.

More than a third of those polled were undecided, which means the race could become much closer by election day, Nov. 3. Slightly more Democrats than Republicans are registered to vote in the district, but Democrats typically don’t go to the polls as much as GOP voters in nonpresidential election years.

Dornan acknowledges that his own polling shows him trailing Sanchez. But he says his Catholic roots and his stance against abortion should earn him the votes of enough Latinos to make up the difference in the race.

However, his own outspokenness could do him in.

Dornan got in trouble last month, for example, when he was quoted as saying he is in favor of posting volunteer “election observers” at polls Nov. 3. Such observers are legal and both parties use them, but the very idea has been a sore point among Orange County voters who remember a poll-guard scandal.

In 1988, the GOP hired uniformed security guards to stand at largely Latino polling places with signs in English and Spanish stating: “Noncitizens can’t vote.” An ensuing civil rights lawsuit was eventually settled for $400,000.

Though no one questioned Dornan’s right to challenge the 1996 election, his contentions angered Latinos and evoked memories of the poll-guard incident.

Against that backdrop, Dornan’s remark last month that senior citizens and young people should volunteer as election observers at the polls was explosive. Democrats from Sacramento to Washington responded with fury.

“Once again, Orange County Republicans are clearly trying to intimidate Hispanic voters,” charged Phil Angelides, a former state Democratic Party chairman now running for state treasurer.

Dornan denies that the voter-fraud issue is targeted at Latinos. It’s not his fault, he says, that many of the votes he alleges were cast illegally in the 1996 election were by Latinos. To underscore his beliefs, he continues to raise warnings in his campaign materials about possible illegal voting.

“If I reach out to [Latinos] and say, ‘Register, please register legally, and please vote for me,’ then I’m not trying to suppress people from voting,” he said. “I’m saying I want to compete for your vote.”

Supporters say Dornan’s concern for proper voter registration reflects values consistent with those held by Latinos.

“Bob Dornan has long been an advocate of the work ethic and the kind of family values that we Hispanics hold very dearly in our culture, so it is not a new message for Bob,” county GOP Chairman Tom Fuentes said.

“The Democrats would have room for criticism if it was something just for election time, but it is not,” Fuentes said. “It is a record of committed belief in these issues and values throughout his political career.”

Use of Catholic Images Offends Some

Some Latino leaders are not persuaded. They do not like Dornan’s use of Catholic images in campaign materials.

“I know he’s anti-abortion, but I think there’s another way to do that than to play politics with one of the most cherished symbols of our Catholic religion,” Gil Flores, former state director of the League of United Latin American Citizens and a Santa Ana resident, said about the mailers.

“He’s saying one thing to a Latino audience, but I’m sure that when he talks to a conservative audience he’s using [the voter fraud issue] as a trump card. I personally don’t think those kind of tactics will help Mr. Dornan.”

Msgr. Jaime Soto, vicar for the Hispanic community of the Diocese of Orange, said that the Catholic Church disapproves of the use of images of the Virgin by politicians.

“I am disturbed by attempts to box Our Lady of Guadalupe into a partisan agenda,” Soto said. “Her message goes beyond the narrow confines [of politics], and that message should not be accommodated to narrow and cynical political motives.”

Dornan, who once built a shrine to the Virgin Mary in his backyard, has not been cowed.

At the opening of his Santa Ana office, he served chicharrones and told a gathering of about 20 supporters that he plans to connect with Latinos grande tiempo. Latinos there chuckled at the fractured Spanish. Dornan had meant to say “big time,” a phrase that can’t be translated literally.

For the last several weeks, Dornan has been relying on a group of about a dozen Latino Republicans to walk precincts and get his message out.

He also has enlisted the support of a Latino group called Catholic Voters for Christian Values, based in Monterey Park. The group, which is independently funded, plans to send anti-Sanchez mailers to voters in the 46th District, said its spokesman, Randy Reyes.

“We just feel that Loretta Sanchez is an impostor to most traditional Latino voters,” Reyes said. “We feel that it is our responsibility to educate and enlighten them as to what their representative is voting for.”

Dornan said such support strengthens his commitment to earn more Latino votes--and his conviction that he can.

“Obviously, I’ve got to say to my Latino community, ‘You forgot what I’ve done for you,’ ” Dornan said. “I’m the one who brought Latinos together when Loretta was living in Palos Verdes and basically shopping. I want to let people know that I’m the real Latino.”

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

Former Rep. Bob Dornan’s quest for Latino votes in the 46th Congressional District race with incumbent Rep. Loretta Sanchez could prove a tough endeavor. Latinos are by far the largest minority bloc among the district’s likely voters, and the precincts in which they were the majority of voters in 1996 went heavily to Sanchez.

Ethnicity of Likely Voters

White: 56%

Latino: 26%

Asian: 9%

Black: 2%

Other: 7%

1996 Results

Precincts where Latinos were majority of voters

Sanchez: 67%

Dornan: 23%

Other: 10%

Precincts where Latinos less than majority