Dornan vs. Sanchez

Human Events, Jun 19, 1998

The distinction of being the first person to encourage Robert K. Dornan to go into politics and seek office probably belongs to a lovely woman named Wilma Winifred Wyatt-better known by the stage name Dixie Lee from her days as a singer, and best known to the world as Mrs. Bing Crosby.

When the young Dornan and his cousin Jack Haley, Jr., would come over to the Crosby home in Los Angeles to play with their friend Gary and his three brothers, the boys' mother would hear Bob's sharp voice and nonstop, machine-gun-style delivery. "Bobby, you've got the gift of gab," she would tell him. "Law school! Politics! That's the place for you!"

Bob Dornan would never go to law school, but he certainly did go into politicsalbeit through an unusual career route that included service as a U.S. Air Force fighter pilot and stints as an actor (most memorably as Captain Bob Fowler on TV's "Twelve O'Clock High"), screenwriter and radio and TV talk show host. He would serve nine terms in the U.S. House, where he was, at least according to the Almanac of American Politics, "one of the loudest voices of American conservatism."

Indeed, there are few conservative causes of the last two decades that Doman (lifetime American Conservative Union: 96%) wasn't in the thick of or didn't have a vocal opinion about. In the process, Doman captured the attention and often the hearts of conservatives nationwide and became famous among viewers of the House proceedings on C-SPAN.

He was in the forefront of the fight for the B-1 bomber in the '70s and was one of the earliest lawmakers to draw attention to the plight of Soviet Jews. In addition, the Califomian was a fierce combatant for the right-to-life-calling himself "the linebacker behind [Illinois Rep.] Henry Hyde"-an early proponent of replacing the present tax code with a national sales tax, and a dogged supporter of Israel, with whose air force the pilot-politician had flown.

When most of the media all but ignored Bill Clinton's still-unexplained sojourn to the Soviet Union while studying at Oxford, the fiery Californian raised the controversy before his colleagues and the world through his orations on the House floor. So active was Doman in the life of Congress that it was difficult to imagine a House without him.

But that's what happened in November 1996, when-to the astonishment of the nation-Dornan was counted out in his Orange County-based 46th District. But not by much. The veteran GOP lawmaker lost to liberal Democrat Loretta Sanchez, a political newcomer, by a microscopic 984 votes.

It would take 14 months, and in-depth investigations by the local district attorney as well as the Congress itself before the race between Dornan and Sanchez was resolved. The special House probe finally ruled that, although it had found 750 illegal voters and "substantial fraud," it "could not prove" there were enough illegal votes to reverse the election.

For someone who had dared the skies and faced a generation of bitter liberal enemies at the polls, this was too much. Bob Dornan announced he was coming back in '98 and vowed that the rematch with Sanchez would be "my second O.J. trial-the one that turns it around."

To skeptics who said he was just a poor sport, Dornan replied: "Is Bob Doman a sore loser, or did I have a legitimate impact on the issue of voter fraud? Did I not create a new standard for how every American thinks about the voting process?"

Others, apparently, agreed with him. On June 2, the former congressman won the Republican nomination for another crack at Sanchez by taking nearly half the primary votes against three opponents, all of whom promptly pledged their support to him at a unity breakfast the following morning.

Hitting church suppers in Garden Grove and Kiwanis pancake breakfasts in Anaheim, Doman talks less about the '96 results than the record of Sanchez (ACU rating: 28%) since she's been in office. She has provided Doman with many targets. "Sanchez supports the rights of homosexuals and abortion rights and would not ban a particular abortion technique opponents call `partial birth' abortion," reports the nonpartisan Congressional Quarterly. "She also favors targeted tax cuts and gun control . . . Sanchez opposes flat tax plans [and] does not support private school vouchers . . . "Noting that Sanchez opposes efforts to roll back affirmative action programs, CQ also pointed out that she "opposes efforts to require that government publications be printed in English only."

Whether it's her decidedly left-wing voting record or their desire to finish Bob Doman off once and for all, liberal Democrats have made the 38-year-old Sanchez a national pinup girl. With help from Clinton, Vice President Al Gore, and former Texas Gov. Ann Richards, she had raised nearly $1.8 million by March.

But, his red hair now tinged with gray, his hoarse voice still vibrant, Doman is experiencing something like what George Bailey (played by Dornan's late friend Jimmy Stewart) went through in the moving final scene of It's a Wonderful Life. All the threads of his life and the people whose lives he has touched-from local party activists to bluecollar workers in Garden Grove to the large Vietnamese community in Westminster-are turning out to volunteer for his rematch with Sanchez.