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| Hillary and Castro |
Qualified?
He’s been a three- term mayor and a Cabinet secretary, so sure. Julian Castro
is her obvious choice—especially against Rubio.
As Democrats browse through
potential 2016 vice presidential candidates looking for someone young,
exciting, and different, does it really come down to Julian Castro—or nothing?
It’s no surprise that the U.S. Housing Secretary, a
40-year-old rising star in the Democratic Party, is rumored to be on Hillary
Clinton’s veep short list. Certainly, he’s already out there auditioning
for the job by defending Clinton’s decision to use a private email server as
Secretary of State and dismissing Republican criticism as “a witch hunt.”
The surprise is that there is a new rumor circulating that
suggests Castro’s name is the only one on the list.
For Henry Cisneros, who served as U.S. Housing Secretary in
the Clinton Administration, the idea is a no-brainer.
“What I am hearing in Washington, including from people in
Hillary Clinton’s campaign, is that the first person on their lists is Julian
Castro, the Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, who used to be the
Mayor of San Antonio,” Cisneros told Jorge Ramos, host of “Al Punto,”
Univision’s Sunday show. “They don’t have a second option, because he is the
superior candidate considering his record, personality, demeanor, and Latin
heritage.”
Castro and his twin brother, Joaquin, a Congressman from San
Antonio, were born in the United States. But their grandmother, Victoria,
crossed the U.S.-Mexico border as a child in 1920. Castro is popular, even
beloved, among segments of the highly consequential Latino community—especially
among Mexicans and Mexican-Americans, a subset that represent about two-thirds
of the estimated 54 million Latinos in the United States.
Latinos matter because every month, about 50,000 of them
turn 18 and become eligible to vote. Mexicans and Mexican-Americans matter
disproportionately because they’re swing voters who are largely in play, more
so than conservative Cuban-Americans or Central Americans who tend to vote
Republican or liberal Puerto Ricans and Dominican-Americans who tend to vote
Democratic. Most Mexicans and Mexican-Americans are registered Democrats, but
they will support moderate Republicans who reach out to them. Just ask George
W. Bush, who earned 44 percent of the Latino vote against John Kerry in 2004.
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