Mike Honda

Khanna’s Fundraising Prowess Hides His Road to Victory

Khanna’s Fundraising Prowess Hides His Road to Victory Short Notes 6 Responses »

Oct 092013

Politico’s headlined today “Ro Khanna outraises Mike Honda again.” And outraised him he did, $500K to $385K. The difference is not very high this time, however, and Honda’s campaign notes that after expenses they both took home about $200K. The numbers, however, hide the real story of Khanna’s campaign.

For Politico, “Khanna’s war chest could help him introduce himself to voters and define his opponent through TV air time as the June 2014 jungle primary November 2014 election get closer.” What it misses, is that Khanna is putting his campaign money into field operations right now. The money pays for training and managing volunteers who are walking door to door introducing Khanna to the voters as close to face-to-face as they physically get. While Khanna is walking himself, there is a limit to how many houses he can hit before the November election.

What should scare Honda more than anything, is the caliber of Khanna’s volunteers. The ones I’ve met or interacted with through Facebok have been smart, educated, likable and able to make a compelling case for their candidate. They are true believers who’ve fallen under Khanna’s spell – or perhaps, as friends and colleagues of Khanna, they are all form part of his magic formula. Indeed, one of Khanna’s principal virtues is that he listens to advise from those who surround him.

I don’t know if these volunteers will be enough – but his campaign recently hired one of the most effective ones. That’s a very intelligent use of money, but one that requires having money in the first place. That, Khanna got.

Two months ago, I was pretty sure Khanna had no chance. Now, I think he’s firmly on the ring.

shobana

Why Congress Members Should Be Paid During the Shutdown

Why Congress Members Should Be Paid During the Shutdown Politics 1 Response »

Oct 082013

“In the general course of human nature, a power over a man’s subsistence amounts to a power over his will.”
Alexander Hamilton, Federalist 79

There is a growing movement of people who are clamoring for members of Congress to forgo their pay checks during the shutdown. Some (mostly wealthy) Congress members have heeded this call, loudly proclaiming they’ll refuse their paychecks or give them to charity. At first glance, this call makes sense. Why should members of Congress get paid when so many federal employees are not? And shouldn’t we punish Congress for putting us in this situation and not passing the budget? Congressional challenger Ro Khanna put it succinctly: “There ought to be consequences for Congress’s inability to do its job.”

I suppose that you can say that Congress, as a whole, is not doing its job. We are experiencing a fundamental failure of democracy and I hope that the powers that be can devise changes in Congressional mechanisms to not put us here again. But can we fairly accuse individual members of Congress of the same? After all, if the job of a Congress member is defined as “pass a budget”, then our Democratic representatives could easily accomplish this by giving in to Republican demands to curtail the Affordable Care Act. As a Democrat and a citizen, however, that’s not what I want. What I want is for my Democratic Congress members to stand firm against Republican blackmail. Sure, I might want the guys on the other side to “do their job” and pass this budget cleanly, but I want it to be because they listen to their own constituents and realize that’s what they want as well. The job of a representative is to represent. The consequences of not doing so are felt, every two years, at the ballot box.

I am particularly disturbed by the implication that we should be blackmailing our own Congress members into doing something other than what people have elected them to do. Ultimately, what Khanna and others are asking is that we put Congress members in a position of choosing between their duties to their constituents and their needs to pay the mortgage, put food on the table and keep their kids in ballet lessons. That is a horrible choice, one that harms our system at the very core. In this case, it’ll be a choice that could lead to the demise of Obamacare.

It is also an unfair choice, one that will ultimately lead to only those who are independently wealthy – or who have well off spouses – to be elected, as they would be the only ones able to resist the economic blackmail we’d have introduced. We already have too many very rich people in Congress, and the wealthier get wealthier while the poor get poorer.

While nothing stops our Representatives from donating their paychecks to charity (though Christian ethics would have them do their charity quietly, rather than announcing them to the world), the XXVII amendment does stop Congress from passing any legislation to reduce Congressional pay until a new Congress is elected. This is exactly to prevent dangerous demagogy from winning the day in situations like this. That said, the pressure to give up salaries is very strong, particularly when fueled by challengers like Khanna that see it as an easy way to score political points. It is important that our Congress members resist that pressure, not just for themselves but for their less-wealthy colleagues.

I am proud of Barbara Lee, Mike Honda, George Miller, Mike Thompson, Jerry McNerney, Anna Eshoo, Zoe Lofgren and Sam Farr and many other Democratic members of Congress for holding strong on the Affordable Care Act. I’m also proud of them for keeping their pay. I urge them to continue to do so.

Alameda Demos Pass Resolution in Favor of Alternatives to Military Acion in Syria

Alameda Demos Pass Resolution in Favor of Alternatives to Military Acion in Syria ACDCC No Responses »

Sep 052013

The following resolution was unanimously passed by members of the Alameda County Democratic Central Committee on Sep. 4, 2013

RESOLUTION IN SUPPORT OF REPRESENTATIVE BARBARA LEE AND MIKE HONDA’S EFFORTS TO SEEK ALTERNATIVES TO ARMED INTERVENTION IN SYRIA

Whereas, the United States has accused the government of Syria of using chemical weapons against its civilian population and is, as a consequence, proposing armed intervertion in the Syrian civil war; and

Whereas, it is unclear what the effect or duration of such intervention would be, opening the door to a long term military involvement; and

Whereas, Congresswoman Barbara Lee, along with 60 of her Democratic colleagues, has proposed that the United States instead take the lead in bringing this issue before the United Nations Security Council; therefore

Be it Resolved, that the Alameda County Democratic Central Committee fully supports the efforts of Congresswoman Barbara Lee and her colleagues to find positive alternatives to armed intervention by the United States in Syria; and

Be it further Resolved, that the ACDCC immediately communicate this resolution to Congresswoman Lee, Senator Boxer, and Senator Feinstein.

Ro Khanna: A Political Portrait

Ro Khanna: A Political Portrait Politics No Responses »

Aug 262013

Ro Khanna

Is this young intellectual the Democratic Party’s answer to Ted Cruz?

I’m meeting with Ro Khanna at my favorite cafe in downtown San Leandro. He’s made the trek from Fremont with a couple of campaign aids at his side. It speaks volumes about the power of incumbency that he is making this effort to talk to me, a mere blogger. It’s not as if Khanna is not getting enough press, even the New York Times has covered his race. But he’s frustrated that most coverage has been about how much money he’s raced (over $2 million). He wants to talk about his ideas.

I want to talk about him. More precisely, about what’s behind his seemingly meteoric rise in politics. And, I can’t deny my curiosity, how did he manage to raise so much money in such little time? I suspect some type of political “get rich” scheme gone right, perhaps merged with Machiavellian political instincts. But if Khanna has read The Prince (and I suspect he has), he doesn’t quote him. I’m presented, instead, with a story that is too close to a script for the American story to not be true, the one that generations of immigrants to this country have strived for and a good many have realized in some way. It turns out that Khanna’s story is a that of a smart and fairly pleasant young man, with tremendous dedication to studying, working, volunteering, thinking and debating. Add to that a little risk taking and bravado and you have the story of what made this country great. When I leave the interview, I’m actually hopeful we can be great again.

At his very core, Ro Khanna is an idealist. He believes in democracy and in public service. He talks about Aristotle, and then quotes Woody Allen (“eighty percent of success is showing up”). He considered working on human rights at the UN or at the World Bank doing economic development, but opted for practicing technology law in Silicon Valley because he is besotted by the spirit of innovation that drives the region. “The meritocracy and openness of Silicon Valley represent America at its best. It’s the America that our founders envisioned, grounded in enlightenment ideals, where the pursuit of knowledge and science are among the highest aspirations.”

More than anything, Khanna believes in the marketplace of ideas. “I want to be heard”, he tells me. “Whether you spread your message by running for office, by writing or blogging or even sending a letter to the editor, the point is to contribute to the public debate”. A while back he’d shown me a letter from President Obama , congratulating him on his recently published book on manufacturing in America. Not being a fan of the President, I had been amused at his excitement. I remind him that Obama endorsed his opponent and ask him why that lettered mattered so much to him. “Are you kidding? To have the President of the United States read my book, hear my ideas? I can’t think of anything more meaningful.”

Khanna’s first encounter with the the power of the published word came in 9th grade, when an English homework assignment (“get published”) led him to send a letter to his local newspaper decrying the first Gulf War. “Going to war with Iraq,” Khanna recalls writing, “would be appropriate in order to protect democracy in Kuwait, but Kuwait is not a democracy.” His argument drew praise from the newspaper’s editor and taught Khanna that if you make an honest, well thought and well formulated argument, people will listen even if they don’t agree with you. He’s been writing letters to the editor an op-ed columns ever since.

Good grades in public school led Khanna to the University of Chicago, where he studied Economics. I question him about his choice, the Chicago School is often blamed for the economic decline of many a developing country. He assures me that he didn’t know about that when he started at Chicago, but notes that it didn’t matter anyway. “The University of Chicago welcomes debate,” he tells me. “Students are encouraged to think for themselves and challenge their professors. It was a wonderful intellectual experience.”

It was in Chicago that Ro Khanna would get his first taste of an electoral campaign. His boss at the Blue Gargoyle Youth Service Center, where Khanna volunteered as a tutor, was an ardent supporter of a then little known politician by the name of Barack Obama, who was making his first run for the Illinois Senate. He convinced Khanna to join the campaign, and Khanna experienced first hand the thrill of door-to-door canvassing on behalf of the future President.

It wasn’t, however, until Khanna had finished law school, completed a federal clerkship and moved to the Bay Area, that the thought of running for office himself entered his mind. It was 2003, the United States had already entered into two wars and Congress had authorized the Patriot Act, vastly restricting civil liberties and leading in part to the NSA mass surveillance we’re experiencing today. When Khanna found out that Tom Lantos, his representative in Congress, had voted for both the Iraq war and the Act, he decided that a campaign challenge was in order. Let there be a public debate over these issues. Whether he won or lost – and he was pretty sure he would lose -, democracy would be the winner.

His run against Lantos, like his current run against Mike Honda, was a bold move, requiring much more political courage than non-party insiders may realize. The Democratic party does not like interlopers. Politicians are supposed to neatly rise through the ranks, working their way up through local office up to state and then to Congress. Moreover, the party looks askance at primary challenges. You are supposed to wait your turn like a good boy or girl until the seating Democratic office-holder retires. If you don’t follow the rules, you become persona non grata and can say goodbye to your political future.

That Khanna was able not only to survive his 2004 primary defeat, but to thrives on its wake, is a testament both to his commitment and hard work, but also to the magnanimity of the late Tom Lantos. “He invited me to breakfast the day after the election,” Khanna tells me, a smile on his face. “I think he got a thrill by my challenge, he enjoyed debating me. He also understood democracy was about something greater than the candidates.”

A few weeks after the election, Khanna took a leave of absence from work, flew to Washington DC and knocked on the doors of the Democratic National Committee. He was there to volunteer on John Kerry’s presidential campaign. “At first they didn’t have much for me to do,” he tells me. “So I started calling Asian Americans and telling them about Kerry. After some time they found me a chair, then a phone, later a desk and a business card, and finally I got a $1,000 a month stipend and the title of Liaison to the Indian American community.”

I grow bored with Khanna’s political and professional career. Not his fault, I have a short attention span. He went back to San Francisco. He worked with Pelossi, Eshoo and Lofgren to bring Silicon Valley and the Democratic Party together and create an Innovation Agenda. He campaigned for Hillary Clinton and then for Obama. Her served in the administration and worked hard to integrate labor’s voice into the Commerce Department’s agenda. He moved back to California and decided to run for Congress. “Our current Congressional system is broken.” He tells me. “There are too many special interests and very little gets done. I am running because Silicon Valley can help change politics, bringing new, out of the box thinking to Washington and pushing for more responsive and transparent government.”

I finally give him a chance to talk about his ideas. He wants to tell me about his vow to not take money from PACs. “It’s easy for you to say that,” I tell him, “you are getting all this money from Silicon Valley billionaires.” It turns out, however, that this is not quite true. “Even the richest individual can only give you $5,200,” he tells me. “It’s a lot of money, but at the end of the day less than 1% of what we’ll raise. That means that when you only take money from individuals, you have to listen to their many voices, and they won’t always agree.” Apparently, getting those $5,200 checks is not easy either. It involves having lots of one-on-one meetings to sell his agenda and his convictions. “Politicians take PAC money because it’s easier and they can be lazy about it,” he says. “You have a breakfast meeting in Washington, invite a room full of lobbyists and you’ve funded your next campaign. But then, you are in their pocket. They know you haven’t developed the personal relationship with individual donors and that you need them.”

Khanna’s stand against PAC money also hearkens back to his training in political philosophy. At Yale, he was a pupil of Bruce Ackerman and would later do research for Lawrence Lessig. Both academics are known for their writings about the corrupting power of money in politics. Ackerman has endorsed him, but it’s Lessig’s better known name which is worth gold- and votes – in Silicon Valley. So far, Khanna can’t use it. Khanna tells me he hopes Honda will agree to a pledge of disavowing any independent expenditures on their race, just like Elizabeth Warren did on hers. I hope Khanna will, regardless.

The more I talk to Khanna, the more I think I erred when I described him as a technocrat and the Democratic answer to Paul Ryan. Khanna is actually a democrat with a small “d”, an intellectual who has not abandoned his youthful infatuation with the liberal political philosophy that fueled the American Revolution. If anything, Khanna is the Democratic answer to Ted Cruz. I ask him by e-mail what he thinks about that comparison. His response: “Ted Cruz comes from the philosophical right and I articulate a philosophical basis for progressives. I offer an economic rejoinder to Ryan, a philosophic rejoinder to Cruz, and a return to our founding ideals to ground a new progressive movement that aspires to see America as Athens, not Sparta, shaping a world of liberal democratic states.” I drool.

My one worry about Khanna is that he won’t be able to keep the promises he makes. That once he is in Congress, he’ll abandon his ideals and in his zeal to “get things done”, he will take ethical shortcuts to the detriment of sound public policy. I can’t help but think of how Obama campaigned on restoring the rule of law, only to work consistently to destroy it once in office. I share these concerns with him. He writes back:

“I am reminded of Orwell. Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. The revolutionary pigs in Animal Farm become the very guardians of the status quo they fought against. What I think can help me guard against that is precisely the literary and philosophical education, which cautions against dogmatism, or linear progress, and reminds us of our fallibility, humanity, and relative place in a very large universe.”

Khanna’s “back to basics” political philosophy has gained him the enthusiastic support of key constituencies in Silicon Valley, from young people to libertarianish techies and politicized immigrants. But it will not win him the election. He is, I remind myself as do others, unproven. What Khanna does have is enough money to make the case for himself, to air his ideas in the democratic marketplace so that voters can truly chose who will represent them best in Washington. Khanna, the would-be political philosopher, will get to experience democracy in action.

MoveOn Endorses Honda, Ten Months Before Primary.

MoveOn Endorses Honda, Ten Months Before Primary. Politics No Responses »

Aug 132013

I like Ro Khanna, but I’m still backing Mike Honda

Of the three Congressional races in Alameda county, only one, so far, is worthy of attention: the one between Ro Khanna and Mike Honda for CD 17. No serious candidate is likely to challenge Barbara Lee for CD 13, and while Ellen Corbett is challenging Eric Swalwell in CD 15, she’s doing it so quietly that every time I see her I feel like asking her whether she’s still running.

Honda and Khanna, on the other hand, have both taken onto the campaign trail with gusto. They are active in social media, they issue press releases and stage press events right and left. Honda is meeting with constituents while Khanna has his coffees, walks and other events. Indeed, it’d be easy to get campaign exhaustion by just reading about all their doings.

In past elections, such flurry of activity by a challenger might have gone unnoticed, such is the power of incumbency. But Pete Stark‘s defeat by newcomer Eric Swalwell after California switched to a top-two open primary system, has put the fear of the election gods in the hearts of incumbents throughout the state. And while Mike Honda is a popular politician with a solid record who shouldn’t have to worry even today – Ro Khanna is young, has energy, the Obama campaign team, almost two million dollars in the bank and seemingly the ability to raise even more astonishing amounts of money. So Honda is nervous.

His nervousness was clear last week when he challenged Khanna to support an expansion of social security. Khanna quickly countered that he supports raising the limit on salary contributions to make social security solid, before talking about expansion. With the two in the same corner, the issue fizzled out.

This week, Honda got the endorsement of MoveOn. Given that it comes about 8 months too early, I can only imagine that it’s another sign that Honda is nervous and he wants something, anything, to mobilize his supporters and, more importantly, his contributors. Indeed, he quickly sent an e-mail to supporters announcing the endorsement and asking for money. While Honda has done a reasonable job at fundraising, his base are ordinary folks and unions (during his 2012 campaign, retirees and human rights professionals were among his five top “industry” contributors). Khanna depends greatly on Silicon Valley billionaires. Khanna, meanwhile, is making a point that he is not taking money from PACS – which he can afford to do given how wealthy his private donors are.

The news that 90% of MoveOn members on his district chose to endorse Mike Honda is not particularly noteworthy. Honda is as reliable a progressive vote as you can possibly want in Washington. He may not have been particularly effective, but no progressive has been in the last decade. At least he votes the right way.

Ro_Canvass_01 Chances are that Khanna will too. The political philosophy he has espoused has not differed much from Honda’s. Rather than on political differences, Khanna’s campaign will rest on his youth and energy, his yet-to-be-announced fresh ideas, his ability to inspire and motivate people (Khanna has not only won the favor of the Silicon Valley upper crust, he has also been building a very strong grass root movement of people who really believe in him) and his potential of becoming a liberal counterweight to Paul Ryan and even the tea-party ideologues in the Senate.

That potential is what makes Khanna so exciting as a candidate and so potentially dangerous as a challenger. Mike Honda’s personal story, that of a child who grew up in a Japanese internment camp and went on to serve his country in the Peace Corp, before coming a teacher and a politician – touches voters because they convey the image of a man who is not only good, trustworthy and humble, but who also has a rock-solid moral code. “Do you know why I support human rights?,” he asked me when I thanked him for past votes. “Because I am human.” It sounds corny, but when Honda says it, you realize that it’s ultimately that simple.

Khanna’s personal story may not be as compelling, but it provides elements that suggest just as solid a foundation for his personal democratic values and commitment to social justice. His grandfather worked for Indian independence as part of the Indian freedom movement and was jailed for his writings in numerous occasions. He continued his political work after independence. It becomes clear when talking to Khanna, how much his grandfather’s struggle for freedom affects his own political path. At the University of Chicago, Khanna studied not only Economics but political Philosophy. You get the impression that this is a man who not only has read Plato, Aristotle,Voltaire, Montesquieu, Payne and the Federalist papers, but understands how the principles of the Enlightenment can and should be applied to our modern democracy. Khanna’s erudition and passion – which so far has mostly shown up on matters of economic policy – may very well be the future of the Democratic party.

And yet, Honda may have less to worry about than he seems to think. For all his potential, Khanna still remains an open question. There is much promise, but promises are not always fulfilled. I am sure I am not the only one that wishes that Khanna had ran against Eric Swalwell, who is the epitome of an unprincipled politician. If he had, I would have supported him with all my heart. But in this day and age, when our civil liberties have been eroded to the point of total destruction, I don’t have the guts to take the chance that Khanna will be all he promises. I’ve been burn so much by politicians in the past. I daresay that a majority of the voters in CD 17 will feel the same.

Khanna may be great, but Honda is really good and a sure bet. It’s true, Silicon Valley entrepreneurs are bigger gamblers than I, but then again, they also seldom vote.

Update: A friend asked me whether I thought Ro Khanna would win. This article sort of answers that questions, but let me share what I told her. I think that unless there is a major scandal, Mike Honda is safe in 2014. Ro Khanna’s money gives him a shot to tell his story, but I don’t know that he can build a message that is compelling enough for many to choose him over Honda. Interestingly, Khanna’s major strength is not his money, but how charismatic he is in a one-to-one situation. He has the power to really inspire people. But a year does not give him enough time to meet enough voters in person to convince them.

My gut feeling is that if he loses in 2014, Khanna will run again in 2016 and he will have a very good chance of winning. Three years campaigning will give him enough time to meet practically every voter face to face. Mike Honda is also charming but he is in Washington for much of the year and he seems unlikely to walk door to door to sell his message directly to voters. Local elections, anyone will tell you, are won by those who knock on doors.

Moreover, after the 2014 election, voters are more likely to pay attention to what Honda is accomplishing in Washington. If Republicans retain control of the House, that won’t be much. In addition, after 8 disappointing years of Obama, I daresay most voters will be ready for a change, a desire that will likely trickle down to lower offices.

Khanna is a smart man, he took a big risk when he decided to go after Honda. Going after Swalwell would have been much easier. To me, that means he’s in it for the long run. He wants that specific seat and he will get it – he may just have to wait three years for it.

Older Entries Newer Entries