Has Ro Khanna’s Disgraceful Campaign Against Mike Honda Finally Flamed Out?

Khanna, a corporate Democrat eager to cut Social Security and Medicare benefits to lower the tax rates for his wealthy supporters, sounds like a Republican. And Republicans and conservative pseudo-Democrats have financed his jihad against progressive icon Mike Honda in the Silicon Valley. Plenty of rich Silicon Valley tycoons with far too much money are behind Khanna’s relentless bid for office. Many of the companies, like Google and Facebook, who have helped the NSA and CIA with unconstitutional domestic spying against their customers, are Khanna’s biggest contributors. Google, in fact, is his biggest single donor. Big money has flowed into his campaign from the Wall Street banksters as well, particularly from Morgan Stanley, venture capitalists Kleiner, Perkins, Goldman Sachs, Pershing Square Capital Management, US Venture Partners, Artiman Ventures, Sutter Hill Ventures and Cambrian Ventures. As of the last FEC filing deadline, banksters had shoveled $529,800 into Khanna’s campaign against Honda. Further Dark Money has poured into a slimy attack PAC formed specifically to smear Honda, the so-called “Californians for Innovation,” which spent $109,724 sending out misleading mailers just last week— bringing their total expenditure in CA-17 to $211,034 so far. The contributions to this group that are not secret come from wealthy Republicans eager to get Khanna into Congress and, especially, inside the Democratic House caucus. Enron crook and hedge fund billionaire John Arnold alone, who drools at the prospect of cutting pensions, gave $250,000. Another shady venture capitalist, Chamath Palihapitiya, one of Ted Cruz's biggest financial backers, is also pouring sacks of cash into smearing Honda.

Polls, however, don’t indicate that’s going to happen. The most recent polling was done last week by Lake Research and it not only shows a gigantic lead for Honda, it shows Khanna unable to even get to 30%— after spending millions of dollars. Worse yet, the new FEC report issued today shows that Khanna has basically burned through all those millions of dollars he’s collected and doesn’t even have enough funds to meet his payroll and rent for the remainder of the campaign— an indication that his vendors are about to be left holding the bag.

Khanna has spent around $4 million and has been unable to gain traction outside of the salons of the one percent. He spent three times more money than Honda in the primary and still lost by 20 points.

Yesterday, Howard Dean was horrified at Khanna’s latest right-wing-inspired attack on Honda as a liberal and sent a note warning DFA members about Khanna’s perfidy. Remember CA-17 is a solidly progressive district— other than in the rarified precincts where his rich donors live… who love the idea of Khanna, cutting and then privatizing Social Security. “Why would someone running as a Democrat,” asked Dean, “attack a fellow Democrat for wanting to repeal the reckless Bush tax cuts?” The mailer up top is what brought Dean— who has never attacked a fellow Democrat in a primary before— down this path.

George W. Bush's tax cuts were fiscally irresponsible. At a time when the nation was at war-- and when we had important investments to make here at home-- President Bush pushed Congress to pass a huge and unprecedented tax cut that favored the rich and caused our national debt to soar.



Yet Ro Khanna is now attacking Mike Honda for opposing Bush's disastrous tax cut. His congressional campaign is sending mailers to voters in California's 17th District calling Honda an "old-school liberal" and criticizing him for wanting to do the right thing in repealing Bush’s tax cuts.



Let's show Ro Khanna that we won't tolerate his attacks from the right against a progressive Democrat who has been a hero for working families.

Being a "liberal" isn't an insult, it's a badge of honor -- one shared by Senators like Elizabeth Warren and Sherrod Brown. But there's nothing good about supporting reckless tax cuts that benefited the super rich and exploded our nation's deficit. Mike Honda showed true leadership and fiscal responsibility in pushing to repeal Bush's tax cuts. It's just one big reason why I endorsed Mike Honda.



As the former Chair of the Democratic National Committee, it's obvious to me that Ro Khanna is campaigning like a Republican. Real Democrats don't use "liberal" as an epithet or attack fellow Democrats for standing up for progressive values like making sure the wealthy pay their fair share in taxes.



This race is a battle for the future of the Democratic Party. Don't let Ro Khanna get away with moving our party to the right by attacking Democrats for standing up for our values.