Bob Dornan
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Robert Kenneth "Bob" Dornan (born April 3, 1933) is a former Republican member of the United States House of Representatives from California. He is a nephew of Jack Haley, who played the Tin Man in The Wizard of Oz.
After attending Loyola Marymount University until 1953, Dornan volunteered to join the United States Air Force. His service in the Air Force was the inspiration for his nickname 'B-1 Bob'. During his time in the air force, he survived two emergency parachute ejections and two "dead stick" forced landings (including one of an F-100). Dornan also served as a photographer during the Vietnam War and he flew relief flights into Biafra.
Around the same time, Dornan participated in the civil rights movement, attending the March on Washington and assisting in voter registration efforts in Philadelphia, Mississippi.
Another field that Dornan was involved in was entertainment. Dornan starred in the movie Starfighters, which was featured on Mystery Science Theater 3000. Dornan also hosted his own radio talk show in Los Angeles in the late 1960s.
In 1976, Dornan was elected to the House of Representatives, representing western Los Angeles County. He was re-elected twice, then ran unsuccessfully for the United States Senate in 1982, finishing fourth in the Republican primary.
In the 1984 election, Dornan was returned to the House, representing Orange County, California, and was re-elected five times. During this time, he served on the Intelligence Committee. In 1995 he received a minor reprimand from the House for stating in a floor speech that President Bill Clinton had "given aid and comfort to the enemy" during the Vietnam War. In 1996, Dornan ran for president, using his campaign primarily as a vehicle to continue to attack Clinton; in a GOP debate in Iowa on January 13, Dornan called Clinton a "criminal" and a "pathological liar," and, when asked why voters should choose Dornan over his Republican rivals to challenge Clinton in the general election, argued that he had more children and grandchildren than the others, with only Richard Lugar coming anywhere near him on that score. He finished with less than one percent of the vote in almost every primary.
Later that year, Dornan squared off against Democrat Loretta Sanchez in his bid for re-election to his House seat. Though confident he would win, owing to his personal fecundity — "She can't beat me," he told the OC Weekly, because "Bob Dornan is a father of five, grandfather of 10, military man, been married 41 years. She has no kids, no military, no track record. I win." — Dornan lost by 984 votes. Alleging that illegal immigrants had voted for Sanchez, Dornan was banned from the House floor in 1997 during the investigation into the election. After losing his bid to have the 1996 results overturned, Dornan was defeated by Sanchez in 1998 by a wider margin. In 2004, Dornan failed to unseat Rep. Dana Rohrabacher in the Republican primary.