When I watched the 2012 Democratic convention everyone was raving about Bill Clinton’s speech. It was good, but I’m going to admit something here. I’m not really a big Bill fan. I’ve always preferred Hillary to her husband, even during his presidency. So, yeah, I thought his speech was fine, but I wasn’t blown away. Instead I came away from the convention loving Michelle Obama’s speech first and foremost, then President Obama’s… and then this guy I’d never heard of before.
Julian Castro.
If you haven’t seen his speech, here it is in full below (and here is the transcript if you'd prefer to read it or can’t access youtube).
There was just something inspiring and, yes, hopeful about him that struck me. More importantly though is that he captured the beauty of the history of America and the future of what this county is aspiring to be. I listened to him and thought of the Statue of Liberty’s words engraved at her base:
'Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to be free.'
That is upon what the United States of America is founded. Immigrants, diverse, rich, yearning, struggling to create a better life for themselves. That is how this great country began more than 200 years ago. And today we are in a similar set of circumstances. The 1% of today is the King George III of yesteryear… those that we are fighting against for our freedom, for our independence, for our equality. Immigrants made this great nation into the United States of America in 1776. Immigrants, diverse in all colors, ethinicities, religious beliefs and sexual preferences, as Americans today are the ones who will continue to make the Unites States of America great and will be the deciding factor of its continuing greatness… because they *are* its future.
But what does that have to do with him as a vice-presidential candidate? Well… Markos recently wrote a diary where he talked about Bernie Sanders having the vision, while Hillary has the details. I can see his point. I believe that with a Hillary Clinton and Julian Castro, we have that match. No, not in the same person, but you don’t need the same person. We already had that person—Barack Obama, and he wasn't seen or appreciated as such so even when we actually *get* that person people don’t notice or care. However, having the two on the same ticket? Well, that’s the ticket!
Combining the wonkish glory of Hillary ‘Decades Of Experience/Let Me Cite Section This of Document That At The Drop Of A Hat ’ Clinton with the up and coming style of Julian ‘Youngish Latino Immigrant Inspirational Miracle Child Happy-Smiley Democratic Hope For the Future’ Castro? Hell, yeah!
There are other reasons why Castro looks like a good fit.
- The age factor. Hillary Clinton is 68 years old. Julian Castro is 41. Should Hillary become the next President, Castro be her Vice-President and she be re-elected and he continue to govern along-side her, that would put him at age 49 in 2024. That is not the worst thing to have a potential Presidential run around that age…right? Especially one’s who’s been working alongside one of the most qualified people ever to hold the office, and also who’s had access to a former President as well in Bill Clinton.
- Also since Castro doesn’t currently hold a senatorial seat, we won’t be losing any of those important Democratic seats that we desperately need in Congress.
- This also could potentially help—should Hillary have a successful run as a two-term President—to keep the Democratic hold on the White House for another 4 or 8 years since (as mentioned above), Castro would only be 49 in 2024. He’d be 57 LEAVING office after two terms… that’s 11 years younger than Hillary is now.
There is the detriment of his experience… or rather lack thereof. Hillary has got decades of experience. HoustonPress.com puts it best.
[B]eing mayor in San Antonio is not like being mayor in Houston. Castro made his mark during his time there by championing universal pre-K education, pushing to revitalize downtown while creating more mixed-income housing, and redeveloping San Antonio's more impoverished East Side to do the same thing. But when it comes to decision-making in San Antonio, the city manager has exponentially more leverage than the mayor, who has more of a part-time job. (Castro made just over $3,000 a year; by contrast, the current city manager makes $425,000.)
Still, his housing efforts in San Antonio did not go unnoticed by Obama. Since taking office as the HUD secretary, Castro has successfully worked on things like reducing mortgage premiums and fighting veteran homelessness; but as White House staffers told Politico, many plans Castro has carried out were those Obama already had before Castro climbed on board. His tenure in that office may be too short for his footprint to really leave a mark.
That leaves Castro with less than two years in Washington and five in a position where he wasn't exactly commander in chief. Which is why Stein is concerned that Castro's inexperience could end up being a liability for Clinton.
That said, Clinton certainly makes up for what Castro may lack in experience. He doesn't have any scandals blemishing his past. He's got that up-from-the-bootstraps American Dream story that voters dote over. And he's got the appeal to the minority voter base to boot.
Politico.com has a nice, long, long look at him, including much of his time in D.C. after his move since becoming the Secretary of Housing and Urban Development. And it makes me that much more leaning toward the idea that he would make a great VP for Hillary Clinton.
Henry Cisneros, a Castro mentor and the other former mayor of San Antonio who became HUD secretary, under Clinton, said he pushes the idea of picking him to the former president and secretary of state every chance he gets.
“When you consider all of the balancing factors—female/male, baby boomer/gen X, traditional American/minority American, Northeastern-Midwestern orientation/Southwestern orientation, long heritage in office/representative of a new generation,” Cisneros said, “a lot of things suggest a very nice pairing.”
Here, Cisneros—who worked with Clinton, and thus is obviously familiar with both of the Clintons—points out the obvious and many ways that Clinton and Castro balance each other out very well. And optics are very important in politics today, and Clinton and Castro make great optics.
Bill Clinton first met Castro at a fundraiser for Hillary Clinton in 2008, in the San Antonio home of Henry Muñoz, now the DNC finance chairman. Four years later, Clinton dialed him up with advice about the convention keynote.
The article goes on to detail a few more dinners and conversations between the two. This adds weight to the point I made above Castro having “access to a former President as well in Bill Clinton.” Looks like this is already in play.
Within weeks, he was at HUD calling in new staff and holdovers, asking them for their vision for the year ahead. If they started rattling off about policy, he’d wave them off. “Here’s the message,” he’d say, according to several people in those conversations. “HUD is the Department of Opportunity. And everything we do will be around that message.”
When detailed policy questions about housing and mortgage financing came up, those people said, he’d freeze up. He seems genuinely interested in helping people, they’d say, but not interested enough in HUD policy to want to engage deeply.
What I found most interesting about this (not that it presents Castro in the best light, of course) was that it actually reminded me of Kos’ diary. Here we have Castro focusing on the "vision" and not the "details." And yet the response was that ‘oh, he wants to help people, but the policy, eh...’ And I will admit that at this point in reading the article, I did begin to question if I was entirely still with this idea, but I kept on reading and I’m glad I did. What is clear is that Castro appears to be truly interested in helping people, but his passion is just not Housing and Urban Development, furthermore he really suffered in comparison to the previous Secretary who apparently was an awesome policy wonk of major magnificence.
Here’s where I started to see some stuff I really liked.
[Rep. Sean Duffy (R-Wisc.), the chair of the Oversight & Investigations subcommittee on Financial Services] gushed about how much Castro’s engaged him, including taking an extra night in northwestern Wisconsin to have dinner with him before visiting the district in November.
“I’m a Republican, he’s a Democrat, a cabinet official, and I’m well aware being talked about as the vice presidential candidate. But putting partisan politics aside and coming out to my district, for me, that was a really big deal.”
“He’s a person,” Duffy said, “who is engaging and building coalitions and looking out for people in, I think, a unique way.”
This is good. This is what we need. Like Joe Biden, who was able to work across the aisle and get things done (to some degree) while the Republicans carried on hating Obama—hopefully a Vice President Castro can work on doing that for a President Hillary Clinton.
Once Castro’s decided on an issue, though, he wraps his arms around it. He was the one who made the final call on who’d qualify for the mortgage premium reduction, and even HUD employees who think he’s out of his depth say he deserves credit for taking a chance that could have come back to bite him if the housing market had tanked at the end of last year.
Castro has expressed concerns to White House aides that they’re tilting too much to the banks in making rules about loans, not giving enough flexibility to consumers. [...] The White House has also tapped Castro to advise and promote the White House’s work with mayors around the country on issues like paid leave and universal pre-K. He’s been “immensely helpful both in talking through the ideas and managing those relationships with the nation's mayors since he knows the challenges and opportunities first-hand,” Muñoz said.
I also really, really like this. (The bolded = nice!) Having someone who has so much background and knowledge of the communities, of the importance of programs like paid leave, like pre-K and how important the downballot candidates are because he’s recently been in those trenches. Also from the article, Castro is a big supporter of Hillary and this is based on her political background. He offered to endorse her the third time they were in a room together.
Overall, I just really like him as her VP pick. No, Julian Castro doesn’t have as much experience as one would necessarily want a VP candidate to have. However to that, I say… if Hillary Clinton’s campaign is vetting him, they will vet him to kingdom come. I trust that if he is chosen by Hillary, it is because she has faith that he has the goods. I truly did see something in him in that DNC speech similar to when I first saw Barack Obama. Whether Julian Castro has that same innate drive, talent, intelligence and gift to succeed as Obama has, I don’t know. But again, if Hillary’s team does the vetting and is secure enough to pick him for the vice-presidential slot, I trust that she is not making this decision lightly and she has vetted him as completely as can be done.
Other links —