Conservative talker flaks for Kaloogian
The progressive bloggers have made a big push to expose the fact that a picture that used to be on Howard Kaloogian’s campaign website was not Baghdad, Iraq as he claimed, but Istanbul, Turkey. The daily violence in Istanbul is apparently much lower than it is in Baghdad.
Left-leaning blogs such as Daily Kos and websites drove this issue and forced the news media to cover this story.
Now conservative radio talker and Kaloogian ally Melanie Morgan is pushing back. Morgan writes a column at the right-wing news website Worldnetdaily in defense of Kaloogian and notes that conservative bloggers are now rallying to Kaloogian’s defense.
Yesterday Roger Hedgecock dimissed this photo scandal during his radio show. And reading the comments to this blog and on many other active left-leaning and right-leaning blogs it seems to me that almost all of the rage on this issue is coming from the left.
Had this scandal erupted in a runoff or general election campaign with Kaloogian and Busby it could have really hurt him. Many moderates and Democrats would have been turned off by the conservative pro-war Kaloogian. But I wonder if in a close GOP primary if the attention Kaloogian’s gotten on this won’t solidify support for him among conservatives who still support the war in Iraq.
I guess we’ll all find out together.
This will still hurt Kaloogian — it will solidify the voters he’s already got, but any moderates that would’ve supported him beforehand (were there any???) are now just more likely to go with another GOP candidate.
So yeah, the timing makes this brouhaha more of a “didn’t help Busby” than a “hurt Kaloogian” deal.
Comment by Nik — March 31, 2006 @ 7:15 pm
Nik: I would agree with you except the local TV reports haven’t been very critical of Kaloogian. Mostly portrayed as an innocent mistake as part of Kaloogian’s trip to Iraq. Right after one of them a Kaloogian tv commercial came on showing him in Iraq.
Not sure people are hearing enough to understand this other than something about Kaloogian in Iraq but he had a picture from Turkey.
What’s ironic is that Kaloogian is an Armenian and probably not very fond of Turkey.
Maybe this is all a ploy of Alan Uke ha!
Comment by Administrator — March 31, 2006 @ 7:19 pm
Hedgecock did go after Kaloogian over the fake McClintock endorsement.
Comment by In n Out — March 31, 2006 @ 7:22 pm
How is it that the Iraqi (and Turkish) photos that Kaloogian used on his website came from Move America Forward (MAF), a tax exempt, non-partisan organization. Wouldn’t it be illegal for MAF to directly aid Kaloogian’s campaign?
Some Republicans have claimed that Kaloogian’s campaign is using Move America Forward’s mailing list. Did the campaign buy that list from MAF?
“I have been on MAF’s e-mail list for a long time. When Howard announced he was running for Congress, I suddenly started receiving e-mails and updates from his campaign, even though I never signed up for them. They continue to this day. So it appears that MAF either gave or sold their e-mail list to Howard.”
The photo of Kaloogain with General Custer that comes up when you go to Kaloogian’s campaign website belongs to MAF. Here is the web address for that photo.
http://www.moveamericaforward.org/images/uploads/blogimages/Kaloogian_and_Custer.JPG
Does Kaloogian have the right to use MAF property in his campaign?
Comment by RJB — March 31, 2006 @ 10:50 pm