Granting benefits to illegal immigrants is immoral. Same-sex marriage will destroy the foundation of civilization. Democratic U.S. Sen. Barbara Boxer represents only wacky San Francisco liberals.
It's 8:45 a.m. on a gloomy Saturday in Newport Beach, and Howard Kaloogian is just warming up.
The Republican candidate for U.S. Senate has a rapt audience this morning -- about 200 members of a conservative breakfast club formed 20 years ago by former Assemblyman Gil Ferguson. A larger-than-normal crowd is at the Balboa Bay Club to hear Kaloogian, another former assemblyman who is among 10 Republican candidates hoping to win the March 2 nomination and face Boxer in the fall.
This group of believers isn't buying the conventional wisdom that Kaloogian will lose the primary to former Secretary of State Bill Jones, a relative moderate endorsed by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and most of the GOP establishment. The other major candidates are former U.S. Treasurer Rosario Marin and former Los Altos Hills Mayor Toni Casey.
"Howard will win because of what he stands for," said Violette Lorenzen of Newport Beach.
Kaloogian is unruffled by polls showing that Jones, having won statewide office twice, is the clear front-runner to take on Boxer. He says he heard the same nay-saying a year ago when he launched a website called RecallGrayDavis.com and began a crusade on talk radio to oust the then-governor, who had just won reelection two months earlier.
"All of the political establishment said, you cannot do this, but I thought it was the right thing to do," Kaloogian tells the crowd, adding that Jones was among the skeptics. Except he refers to Jones as "Smith" -- a swipe at Jones' easy-to-remember name, which Kaloogian says is the sole reason for his opponent's superior showing in polls.
With just days before the primary, this is one of the largest crowds to embrace Kaloogian. His campaign until now has consisted mostly of scores of half-hour guest spots on talk-radio stations, where interest was fueled by his opposition to President Bush's plan to grant guest-worker status to illegal immigrants.
He's clearly at home with the Orange County crowd; his manner is assured, his diction perfect. He speaks for a half-hour without notes, punctuating various points with heated gestures, responding to every question with the conviction of the righteous.
It's a trait that has led him to be labeled arrogant and unsufferable by some critics, even within his own party. Some accuse Kaloogian of chasing conservative causes as a way to raise money through the Internet and of putting his political ambitions first.
One anonymous critic was irked enough by Kaloogian to fund a "Howard Is a Liar" advertisement on Rough & Tumble, a daily roundup of California political and government news posted daily on the Internet. The advertisement links to a Web page that challenges Kaloogian's claim to have started the Davis recall. That honor, the ad claims, goes to advocate Ted Costa and "100 patriots" who signed the initial recall petition, as well as to Rep Darrell E. Issa (R-Vista), who donated almost $2 million to propel the recall effort.
The website isn't saying who posted the ad; no one is taking responsibility for it. Issa recently endorsed Jones, calling him a "fair, unbiased leader who will put Californians first in the Senate." Issa's office declined to comment on Kaloogian and denied any connection with the Web ad.
Kaloogian bridles at the criticism. The recall was the effort of a team, he said, of which he was one of several key members. But he insisted that his efforts and that of his campaign manager, Sacramento veteran Sal Russo, were pivotal to early interest in the recall and its ultimate success.
His confrontational style may have earned him enemies over the years, for no one is off limits -- his Republican convention rally last weekend, nominally against giving driver's licenses to illegal immigrants, included insults aimed at both President Bush and Gov. Schwarzenegger. But, he says, the same trait makes him formidable against the equally aggressive Boxer.
His fall campaign would be a frontal attack on Boxer's positions, he said: on the war in Iraq, which she opposes; abortion rights, which she supports; gun control, which she supports; traditional values, which he said she flouts.
"I know how to do this," he said of the campaign. "I'm feisty and I'm able to conduct a campaign against her. I know how to communicate. If we nominate the Bob Dole of California, we'll lose."
Kaloogian runs the campaign chiefly from his San Marcos home, which he shares for the winter with his father, a retired engineer from Michigan. He bought the home two years ago after the unexpected death of his mother, who'd fled to the United States to escape the Armenian genocide in World War I. He had been living in a Carlsbad condo and wanted more space for winter visits from his dad. He communicates with his Sacramento campaign team via cellphone and three computer screens.
