San Diego Politics Blog

TPMMuckracker.com got a hold of candidate Howard Kaloogian and got him to respond to the photo-flap that has spread across the blogosphere and international news media outlets.  Here’s the explanation offered by Kaloogian for the Istanbul, Turkey v. Baghdad, Iraq photograph controversy:

We reached Kaloogian by phone moments ago. Here’s what he had to say:

[O]n the way back from Baghdad some of the crew stopped in Istanbul as a layover. We turned all the photographs [from the trip] over to the webmaster, and it appears he took one from the stopover and not from Baghdad. If a mistake happened, we’ll correct it.

The campaign to fill the vacancy of disgraced former congressman, "Duke" Cunningham, has attracted international attention (stories I found on Google include reports from the UK, Italy and others) because of a photograph on the campaign website of Republican candidate, Howard Kaloogian.

Kaloogian was part of a trip to Iraq with conservative talk show hosts that had the message that the war in Iraq was going better than the media reported.

However, a photograph on his campaign website which was supposed to make his point apparently was taken as the group Kaloogian was with was heading back and stopped at Istanbul, Turkey.

Kaloogian’s campaign replaced the picture with one it says is properly of Baghdad.

Here’s the page with Kaloogian’s new photograph.

Here’s a report picked up from DailyKos on the "Baghdad, Turkey Photo Scandal."

Here’s the Kaloogian campaign response:

Downtown Baghdad
We originally posted a photograph not of Baghdad, Iraq but from Istanbul, Turkey where our delegation traveled on the way home to the United States. We apologize for this mistake. We have corrected it with a photograph we took from Baghdad. We took this photo of downtown Baghdad while we were in Iraq.  Iraq (including Baghdad) is much more calm and stable than what many people believe it to be.  But, each day the news media finds any violence occurring in the country and screams and shouts about it - in part because many journalists are opposed to the U.S. effort to fight terrorism.

And yet another poll.  This time SurveyUSA decides to ask candidate preference.  Update: Here’s the full poll results.

The headline has to be that the Democrat frontrunner is on a tear!  Busby is now up to 45% of the vote and if this survey is accurate it could mean that Busby could somehow win this outright on April 11th.

Next shocker:  Roach and Kaloogian now lead Bilbray in the race for the GOP nod (assuming there’s a runoff which isn’t such a certainty now).  Update:  The poll shows Roach and Kaloogian tied among conservatives (24% each) and Republicans (23% each).

Uke and Morrow are again in the 5% range, consistent with other recent polls.

I received a tip on this from an email which referred me to a website, Redstate.org.  Here’s their analysis.  Note they say Morrow and Roach do not have websites.  Wrong!  They both have good websites you can see here and here.

The poll results:

Busby: 45% (!)

Roach: 14%

Kaloogian: 12%

Bilbray: 10%

Uke: 5%

Morrow: 5%

Left-wing powerhouse, Moveon.org, has sent out an email to their members asking them to flood the 50th district with phone calls to help give Democrat Francine Busby a victory.

You can read about Moveon’s efforts at their website here.

Despite lagging behind in the polls, Republican candidate Bill Morrow’s campaign manager wrote in a blog entry at the Flash Report that Morrow’s in this race to stay.  Conservative activists have been trying to get Morrow to drop out of the race and throw his support to either of the 2 leading conservative Republicans in the race:  former Assemblyman Howard Kaloogian or businessman Eric Roach.

It will be interesting to see what happens with Bill Morrow once this race is over.  A Marine who served his country and then ascended to political office (both the State Assembly and State Senate), he appears to be on his way to losing his 2nd congressional race in a row.

He has a captivating biography and impressive credentials, but he doesn’t seem to be able to step it up to the higher levels and thrive amidst the political crossfire.  It will be interesting to watch Bill Morrow in the near future and see which path in life he pursues.