Howard Dean: And if you can’t go to
New Hampshire, I want you to go
to Arizona or New Mexico or
California’s 17th District. Eiiarrgh!!

CONGRESS | 17TH DISTRICT | Rep. Mike Honda may finally have a plan to combat his Democratic challenger’s prodigious fundraising prowess. While tapping into a growing populist discord for the Silicon Valley ethos and its sky-rocketing wealth, Honda received help Tuesday with the endorsement of Howard Dean’s progressive Democracy for America.

“At DFA, we support Democrats with backbone, who lead with vision and who fight for core Democratic values,” said Dean. “We’re working to elect not just any Democrat, but better Democrats. I’ve known Mike for years — he’s one of the strongest progressives we have in Congress.”

Later, the former Vermont governor and 2004 candidate for president said Silicon Valley titans intend to put one of their own in the San Jose-centric 17th Congressional seat. Honda’s is facing fellow Democrat Ro Khanna, who already maintains a war chest of nearly $2 million in campaign contributions exactly six months before next year’s June primary.

“Now Mike is facing a corporate-backed challenger whose big money donors are intent on buying Mike’s congressional seat,” added Dean. “The fight to take back the House from the far right and elect a progressive majority starts now—and it starts with re-electing Mike Honda.”

Although, Khanna’s stump speech often refers to his campaign’s pledge to finally give Silicon Valley a representative more in tune with the region’s geekdom, there could be cause for concern if Honda can broadly paint Khanna as part of the get-rich-quick IPO crowd. Conversely, Honda’s 12 years in Congress have been marked by a focus on education and civil rights.

Tuesday afternoon, Khanna’s campaign moved quickly to refute Dean’s assertion their candidate is “corporate-backed.” While some of the biggest names in Silicon Valley like Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer and Facebook’s Sean Parker, have donated to Khanna’s campaign, he has yet to accept any money from political action committees or special interest groups, according to campaign fundraising reports through Sept. 30.