CA-17: Silicon Valley Backs Democrat Ro Khanna

We usually keep an eye on Down With Tyranny and Daily Kos for our Democratic “up’n’coming names” fix. This morning, we’re looking at an interesting profile of a Democrat poised to challenge incumbent Rep. Mike Honda:

It is a Thursday night in mid-May in San Francisco’s North Beach and Silicon Valley is feeling its oats. The occasion is a $2,600-a-plate fundraiser at the Park Tavern Restaurant for Ro Khanna, an upstart aspirant to represent California’s 17th District in Congress.

The 17th include the heart of Silicon Valley and the tech economy elite have come out in force. Executives from Oracle and Pinterest and Dropbox and Y Combinator are in the house. Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer has made an appearance. So has Ron Conway, the Valley’s legendary angel investor. Napster co-founders Shawn Fanning and Sean Parker are both present.

Sean Parker, in fact, has the mic.

If anybody represents both the ego and the id of Silicon Valley in the year 2013, it is Parker, most recently famous for his faux medieval redwood grove wedding down in Big Sur. As he revs up the crowd to meet Ro Khanna, he makes it clear that this gathering In North Beach isn’t a run-of-the-mill rubber chicken political dinner circuit. This moment is all about Silicon Valley asserting itself as more than just silicon and software. …

A little more than a year away from an election that will decide which of two Democrats will represent the 17th, Ro Khanna lags far behind the incumbent, Mike Honda, in the polls. But thanks to his well-heeled friends and supporters in the tech community, Khanna has far out-raised the veteran lawmaker. His treasure chest is big enough to afford hiring a fleet of top campaign operatives from Barack Obama’s 2012 reelection campaign. Only 36 years old, the intellectual property lawyer has already served a stint in Obama’s Commerce Department and written a book about how to boost manufacturing in the United States. He’s someone to take seriously.

By: dave-dr-gonzo

David Hirsch, a.k.a. Dave "Doctor" Gonzo*, is a renegade record producer, video producer, writer, reformed corporate shill, and still-registered lobbyist for non-one-percenter performing artists and musicians. He lives in a heavily fortified compound in one of Manhattan's less trendy neighborhoods.

* Hirsch is the third person to use the pseudonym, a not-so-veiled tribute to journalist and author Hunter S. Thompson, with the permission of his predecessors Gene Gaudette of American Politics Journal (currently webmaster and chief bottlewasher at Liberaland) and Stephen Meese at Smashmouth Politics.