[Guardian] Ro Khanna, a California Democrat, pushes initiative in the state amid questions over his own political aspirations.
Ro Khanna is not running for president.
Unlike many of his colleagues in Congress, the Silicon Valley congressman was not in Iowa to test the waters for a White House run. His visit was decidedly more ambitious: to bridge the deepening economic divide between urban and rural America.
On a recent Saturday night, Khanna, a progressive Democrat who was recently re-elected in the diverse, deep-blue California district where Apple, Intel and Yahoo have headquarters, joined tech leaders here in Jefferson, an Iowa town of 4,200 people. It is located in a predominantly white, rural swath of the state represented by congressman Steve King, a far-right conservative whose questioning of Google’s CEO, Sundar Pichai, during a hearing on Capitol Hill this week fueled criticism that Congress doesn’t understand how technology giants operate.
The gulf between the two districts is precisely why Khanna came to Jefferson.
"The digital revolution is one that every community should and can participate in," he told an audience of local leaders and out-of-town tech industry executives.
They gathered in the town’s History Boy Theatre to learn about an initiative that promises to bring high-paying tech and software design jobs to Jefferson. If it succeeds, they believe the program could be a blueprint for revitalizing other rural communities. 
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