Rogan Becomes Democrats’ Dartboard

To vengeful Democrats, Glendale Rep. James E. Rogan is the poster boy for an impeachment-obsessed Republican Congress--poster boy for a hateful gang that tormented their president.

Rogan’s mug has become a dartboard for the California Democratic Party.

Says party spokesman Bob Mulholland: “Rogan is on the endangered species list. . . . He’ll need an oxygen tank to survive. . . . He’s going to find himself in a boat looking for a life raft. . . .”

Choose your metaphor.

How did Rogan--a very bright and pleasant chap who once earned wide respect as a state assemblyman--wind up such an inviting target? Why did this politically vulnerable congressman from a tricky swing district allow himself to become one of the despised House managers who futilely prosecuted a popular president?

The answer to Rogan’s poster boy evolution can be found, I suspect, on his office wall in Washington. It’s covered with historic political posters: Nixon for Governor, Lyndon Johnson for Senator, Reelect Gov. Franklin D. Roosevelt, Harry S. Truman for Judge. . . . There’s a zillion buttons, hats, banners and signed photos in the congressman’s memorabilia collection.

“I started saving this stuff when I was a kid,” he notes--back as a seventh-grader when he corresponded with Truman while writing a school paper on the ex-president.

“Really, I’m just a political, historical junkie,” says Rogan, 41. “I love the history. Clearly, you get a front-row seat to incredible history as a member of Congress.”

He lives and breathes political history. And being at the center of a historic impeachment trial was too much for this junkie to resist.

“Well, yeah, as an amateur historian,” Rogan says, “it was fascinating.”

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But Rogan insists that’s not why he became one of the lead Clinton prosecutors. He was recruited, says the former deputy D.A. and Municipal Court judge. “I didn’t ask for it.”

Rogan became a true believer that Clinton should be removed from office, he says: “The president committed perjury and obstructed justice in a civil rights-sexual harassment lawsuit. . . . If this were just about having an affair with an intern, it’s tacky, but it’s not the business of Congress.”

But now he’s the Democrats’ dartboard.

A party poll found that only 34% of Rogan’s constituents intend to reelect him next year. The House impeachment was opposed by 55%; Rogan’s job approval rating is 45%, compared with Clinton’s 69%.

Rogan won reelection last November by a narrow 51% to 46% in a once-conservative district that gradually is becoming more moderate. Its voter registration is 45% Democrat, 39% Republican.

“The area is trending Democratic due mostly to an increase in middle-income Latino, African American and Asian voters in the San Gabriel Valley,” says Allan Hoffenblum, publisher of the Target Book, which analyzes legislative districts. “Conservative whites are moving farther out toward Santa Clarita.”

Rogan’s impeachment activism will energize hard-core Democrats and Republicans alike, no doubt. This issue, per se, won’t be his biggest problem. It’s what is likely to evolve from his new notoriety that could prove fatal.

Rogan is blood on the water. He’s looking very vulnerable and that’s almost guaranteed to attract a strong opponent and barrels of opposition money.

State Sen. Adam Schiff (D-Burbank) says he’s “taking a hard look” at a 2000 race. Assemblyman Jack Scott (D-Altadena) is another possible Rogan opponent, but says he’s inclined to stay in the Legislature and run for Schiff’s seat if it opens up.

Says Hoffenblum, who’s also a GOP consultant: “If Schiff or Scott run against Rogan, he’s in trouble.”

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Rogan also has another problem: His impeachment role is a red flag that will draw voter attention like never before to his staunch conservatism. He opposes abortion rights and most gun control, for starters.

“His strength is that people like him,” says Hoffenblum. But his relaxed, likable manner didn’t always come through on TV during the Senate trial. Too often, he looked stiff and doctrinaire.

Rogan professes not to worry. “I’m not afraid to lose,” he asserts. “That’s liberating for a politician. . . .

“You battled-scarred cynical guys don’t know quite what to do with a politician who puts his finger to the wind and says, ‘Yeah, it’s blowing this way and it may cost me my reelection, but I’m going to do what I think is right.’ ”

Rogan played a major part--he believes a noble part--in history. He wasn’t about to pass that up. But now the history junkie may himself be history.