Honda vs Khanna-- Substance vs (Bad) Style

Here's one member of the Obama team not getting on the Ro Khanna choo choo

There was some sense of panic last week in the left blogosphere where it came out that some former Obama campaign operatives-- no one you probably ever heard of-- took jobs from tech-and-publicity-savvy Ro (short for Rohit) Khanna's perpetual campaign to put himself into office. Blue America has long encouraged primaries against bad Democrats. Last year we helped progressive superstar Matt Cartwright beat corrupt Blue Dog Tim Holden in northeast Pennsylvania. We also lent a hand to a young reformer in El Paso, Beto O'Rourke, in his bid to win a seat from another corrupt, conservative, Silvestre Reyes. Our biggest upset ever was helping Donna Edwards take on Al Wynn in Maryland years earlier. And in between there were hard-fought, though not successful, campaigns against Blanche Lincoln, Dan Lipinski and John Barrow. All these targets have two essential characteristics in common: corruption and self-serving, anti-family conservatism. Each had long ago betrayed the values and principles that make the Democratic Party worthwhile in relation to the Republican Party.

Ro Khanna has a carefully nurtured-- and well-placed-- bio but the only reason he's running against Mike Honda is ugly personal ambition. Mike Honda is an embodiment of what's right about the Democratic Party. That's why President Obama, who rarely bothers endorsing incumbent congressmen, came right out for Honda. And he wanted to make it clear that if a bunch of political operatives who worked for his campaign have hooked up with an ego-driven opportunist, he wasn't going along with it. Both California senators and the whole political establishment from Howard Dean and Progressive Caucus co-chairs Raul Grijalva and Keith Ellison on the left to more centrist Democrats like Pelosi and Wasserman Schultz and powers on the right of the party like Steve Israel, have all endorsed Honda. Obama: “Congressman Mike Honda is the right leader for the 17th district.  Together, we’ve worked hard these last four years to bring meaningful, positive change to our nation, but there is much more to do. As we continue rebuilding our economy from the middle out, we know expanding educational opportunities is critical. Congressman Honda's lifelong commitment to education and fierce advocacy for innovation and technology is exactly what this nation needs as we continue to move America forward. We need Congressman Mike Honda in the United States Congress, and I urge you to vote to keep him there."

  Pelosi knows Honda a lot better and for a lot longer. She also knows Khanna pretty well and is very aware that he's been a major conduit of Indo-American money into the Democratic Party. Her statement on the race: "Congressman Mike Honda's life has been a tribute to the quintessential American ideals of equality and opportunity for all. From a childhood spent in an internment camp, Mike has risen to the heights of American leadership-- as one of the top Democrats on the powerful Appropriations Committee and a critical voice for fairness, the rights of LGBT couples and all families. Mike is a bold and effective leader who understands the needs of Silicon Valley and the 17th District, ensuring American competitiveness and fighting for American manufacturing, comprehensive immigration reform, STEM education and technological innovation. We need his continued leadership for our nation in the House of Representatives, and I am proud to endorse him."

What's especially interesting about the Obama and Pelosi endorsements, is that Honda is considerably further left than either of them. A representative of Silicon Valley with it's giant tech corporations, he's always been an unstinting champion of working families anbd ordinary Americans, not of tech multimillionaires and billionaires, which is something Khanna is trying to take advantage of. Honda, who was the principal author of the Progressive Caucus budget in 2011 and one of the authors of their budget this year, has been an outspoken critic of Chained CPI and has pledged to oppose it (and all cuts to benefits for seniors and veterans). He signed the Grayson Takano No Cuts letter and can be counted on to help counter the extreme right... rather than compromise with it's predatory designs-- which is what Khanna and his backers believe in as an article of faith.

Oh, sure, Khanna is pro-Choice and pro-gay and anti-gun but that's just because of where he's running and because he wound up as a "Democrat" rather than a Republican for some reason. He's a free trade fanatic and a political hack wannabe with as much interest in economic justice as anyone rich enough to be clueless about the entire concept. The way Joshua Green painted it in Businessweek last week, this is a replay of Eric Swalwell's race against Pete Stark last year. Stark, a liberal war horse from decades past, was doddering and senile. Honda is at his prime-- one of Congress' biggest brains. Green got the analysis all wrong, without even understanding that Swalwell has been one of the worst Democratic freshmen elected last year. Everything in his analysis is naive and right from Khanna's extraordinarily well-oiled propaganda machine:

As Khanna’s race against Honda plays out, it will not only bring a clash between young and old, insurgent and establishment, but also test Obama’s brand of politics in a new arena. Most traditional Democratic interest groups are lining up behind Honda. But early indications are that the new coalition that emerged to elect Obama is going to side with Khanna, including many tech titans whose support was instrumental when Obama first took on that same establishment as a long-shot presidential candidate in 2007.

In Washington, Obama’s idea of a post-partisan America has gone stale. Khanna and his advisers believe that its power endures. His own flourish is recasting that idea as the pathway to economic salvation. “I believe there are ways of cutting past some of the ideological logjams in Washington when it comes to issues of American economic competitiveness and a pro-growth agenda,” he says. By implication, Honda, the reliable party man, is part of the problem-- a message that doubles as an appeal to the independents and Republicans who will vote in the open primary.

“The Obama vision is still in demand,” [Larry] Grisolano says. “I think you’ll hear candidates across the country trying to meet it. When you listen to Ro, you’ll hear it. It’s very Obama-like in its echoes of challenging Hillary.”

What will be more intriguing, though, is the attempt to build a new network modeled on the one that delivered such a resounding victory to Obama. “The goal in bringing together the best talent from the Obama team,” says [Steve] Spinner, “is to run a campaign in a strong Democratic district that operates like a battleground state in a presidential election.” That entails a paired focus on grass-roots organizing and technology in a district primed for both. “We’re going to be driven by analytics,” says [Jeremy] Bird. “That means everything from building models to having really smart feedback on what we’re doing and being able to track it and base our decisions on metrics. We’ll be very digitally sophisticated where it makes sense-- to get votes, get volunteers, and raise money.”

...While Bird and his staff dismiss the notion that the Obama campaign was “magic in a box” that can be franchised like some sort of Applebee’s, that’s exactly what they’re attempting to do in Silicon Valley. If anything, their expertise may be more valuable at this level. “Data is more important in House races than in presidential races,” [Jim] Messina says, “because midterm elections are all about turnout and data makes that easier.”

If the experiment works, it could be a harbinger of things to come, and an important part of institutionalizing Obama’s influence over the party. “There’s a whole generation of Democrats inspired by the Obama campaign who will go run for office,” says Bird. “Not just candidates, but managers and field directors that know how to do this.”

Substance-free politics isn't going to work in California's 17th CD-- too many savvy people to be taken in by a 36 year old huckster with an Ivy League degree and his band of paid party whores. Maybe he should try Bucks County, PA, where he's from-- and where there are plenty of Republicans who will love his powdery message.

UPDATE: Mike Honda Will Not Tolerate Cuts To Social Security

After publication, Congressman Honda told us that he wants to see Social Security strengthened, not weakened. "I believe, as millions of other Americans do, that our deficits are a problem that deserves our attention, but Social Security spending is not the cause of our deficits. Any attempts to draw down our debt should be done in a sensible, responsible way, and not on the back of those who can least afford it-- struggling American families, seniors, veterans-- including our 3.2 million disabled veterans, individuals with disabilities, and children on survivors’ benefits.

  "I’m eager to see what protections the President’s proposal has for vulnerable populations, but I am wary because every chained CPI proposal I’ve seen would affect veterans, people with disabilities, seniors on fixed incomes, and would institute compounding benefit cuts that would hurt future retirees harder as time goes on. The average annual Social Security benefit for retirees amounts to a very modest $15,000, yet one-third of seniors rely on Social Security for 90 percent of their income. These seniors cannot afford any reductions. As we face a looming retirement security crisis, with the majority of our workforce lacking private pensions and over one-third of all workers unable to save any money at all for retirement, we should be working together to make Social Security stronger, not weaker, to make our future retirees more secure.

"Americans all over the country depend on every single dollar they get from Social Security for the food on their table, and the roofs over their backs. At a time when so many of our Americans are already struggling, I strongly oppose benefit cuts to Social Security and will work with my colleagues to ensure that our government fulfills its promise to its future retirees."