CALIFORNIA IN BRIEF : ORANGE COUNTY : Kovic Seeks Input on Political Future

Ron Kovic, the paraplegic Vietnam veteran whose life story is told in the current film “Born on the Fourth of July,” appealed to residents in Rep. Robert Dornan’s congressional district to help him decide whether he should run for the office. Kovic said in interviews that he is “ready to serve my country again, but I cannot make this decision alone. I am asking people to write me, to call me, to come up to me on the street. I’m not a professional politician. If I ran it would be as a citizen-representative, an everyday person.” Kovic said he will make a decision by the end of February when he returns from a film festival in Europe. Several national Democratic leaders have urged him to run against Dornan in the 38th Congressional District in Orange County. Dornan criticized Kovic’s call for more U.S. support of changes in the Soviet Union and a “perestroika in America.” “My hope for the future is a future without the communism that put Ron Kovic in a wheelchair,” Dornan said.