Dornan Walks Out of TV Debate That Excluded Two Foes

Former Rep. Robert K. Dornan stormed out of a televised debate with Republican challenger Lisa Hughes on Saturday, surprising and angering the conservative group that held the forum.

Dornan said he was protesting the decision to exclude his fellow Republican contenders for the 46th District congressional seat, James P. Gray, a Superior Court judge, and former Cypress City Council member Chuck Coronado. Dornan blasted his party, apologized to more than 100 members of the Stand Up America Committee attending the Irvine forum and walked out of the meeting hall.

“I’m sorry from the bottom of my heart,” Dornan told the crowd a few minutes into his opening statement in a 90-minute program. “All four had a right to be here. I beg your forgiveness; I cannot participate.”

John Theiss, Hughes’ campaign manager, called Dornan’s walkout an act of desperation in a close race. The winner of the June 2 Republican primary faces Rep. Loretta Sanchez, the Garden Grove Democrat who unseated Dornan in 1996.

“This is pure Bob Dornan theatrics--anything to shake things up,” Theiss said.

The forum’s moderator, Fullerton resident W. Snow Hume, said Dornan never questioned the debate lineup until he saw the format, which would have required thoughtful answers to dozens of detailed and specific questions.

“I will publicly accuse Bob Dornan of being a liar and a hypocrite,” Hume said.

Melani Crandall of Huntington Beach, the chair of the group, called Dornan’s walkout “outrageous and rude.” Although it does not endorse candidates, the Stand Up America Committee seeks out candidates whose views conform to its own. It has an active membership of 1,100 and a mailing list of more than 3,000, Crandall said.

They said Gray and Coronado were not invited because their views were known to be in conflict with the group’s conservative views. Gray actually picketed before the start of the debate in protest of his exclusion.

After Dornan’s walkout, Hughes, an Orange attorney, stood and answered a series of 45 questions from group members on issues of foreign policy, immigration, free trade and taxation.

“Maybe I could use both microphones,” Hughes quipped.

Later, Hughes’ campaign manager asked several times that the format be altered, given Dornan’s departure and the discontinuation of the live broadcast. When debate organizers refused, Hughes also left, walking away during a break.

Dornan said outside the debate, held in a sweltering room at the Irvine Ranch Water District building, that he assumed all four Republican candidates would be included. “This is a good group, but they did something that is not American,” Dornan said of the Stand Up America Committee. “They played the game of ‘who’s the front-runner.’ ”

He said the event was not a debate but “another structured candidate presentation,” and said it reminded him of an occasion in 1982 when he was excluded from a forum of 13 GOP U.S. Senate hopefuls.

During her solo stint at the forum, Hughes accused Dornan of forfeiting the 1996 election to Sanchez because of his preoccupation with the presidential race, in which he was also a candidate, and inattention to his district. “He didn’t win that election because he was not in his district,” she said.