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Julián Castro, San Antonio’s ‘relay’ [Mexican-American / Chicano] star

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Texas Rising Mexican-American political Stars via the Castro Brothers

Great oped by E.J. Dionne Jr.

Mexican-Americans are big fans of the Castro brothers, and as you may already know … Mexicans make up of almost 70% of the entire Latin population pie with Puerto Ricans at 9% and Cubans representing 3%.

Forge ahead Julian!

The 38-year-old mayor of San Antonio, which has boomed into the country’s seventh-largest city, came to national attention much as Barack Obama did, with a first-rate keynote speech at the Democratic National Convention. Last year in Charlotte, he spoke affectingly of life being not a marathon but a “relay” in which each generation lifts up the next.

His metaphor didn’t have the instant punch of Obama’s 2004 red-and-blue America oration, but it does have staying power, just fine for a man playing the long game.

Castro is looking toward easy reelection in May to his third two-year term, and you can expect him to resist entreaties to run for governor in 2014. Demographic change is not likely to turn red Texas purple until the last part of this decade. “No question it will be more hospitable” to a Democrat, Castro says with a smile.

As it happens, he hits the city’s mayoral term limit in 2017, nice timing for a governor’s race in 2018 or for a run against first-term Sen. Ted Cruz, a Republican. Castro rules nothing in or out, but he’s not cagey. He sees a way up, and many Democrats hope he’ll take it.

And his “relay” metaphor was more than a rhetorical device. It describes his political life, and that of his twin brother, Joaquin, a member of Congress.

What makes Mayor Castro especially interesting is the interaction of his pragmatism with the early radicalism of his mother Rosie, his first political mentor. She was a founder of La Raza Unida Party — she eventually returned to the Democratic fold — and a poster from his mom’s unsuccessful 1971 city council race hangs proudly in the mayor’s office. FULL STORY>>>


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