Castro discovers America -- one voter at a time
SAN DIEGO -- It's not easy to see a friend struggle. And it's even harder if that friend is running for president in a crowded field of Democratic contenders -- and not getting his fair share of the spotlight.
You get frustrated because, while voters in Iowa and New Hampshire try to figure him out after meeting him for only 15 minutes, what you understand after knowing him for 15 years are his core qualities: authenticity, humility, competence, integrity.
You know that your friend has minimal baggage, and that this comes from another quality that seems in short supply in politics these days: accountability. While others could flout the law in their youth and escape the consequences because of their privilege, your friend has had to walk a straight line or else answer to his family, friends and community.
Julian Castro is not accustomed to coming in second -- or 12th. An overachiever who grew up always knowing the answers to the quiz, the former Secretary of Housing and Urban Development is now facing his biggest test.
His presidential campaign has gotten off to a rocky start.
One reason is that he's trailing in the crucial "media" primary. Other candidates are more frequently the topic of conversation on TV chat fests where pundits, reporters and anchors give their take on what they expect will be the Final Four. At the moment, that's Joe Biden, Beto O'Rourke, and Sens. Bernie Sanders and Kamala Harris.
Castro, who is polling nationally in the low single-digits, doesn't schmooze with the media. Whether he's talking to New York Magazine or Politico, he often scolds the Fourth Estate for not being more racially and ethnically diverse.
Good point. If our media looked more like America, the folks in New York and Washington might be better able to grasp the historical significance of his campaign and give it a fair hearing. For instance, it's absurd for white journalists to constantly ask him why he doesn't speak perfect Spanish when -- according to marketing figures -- about 80 percent of Latinos in the United States speak English or a combination of both languages.
Yet where Castro hits his stride is in retail politics. Art Cullen, the editor of the Storm Lake Times in northwest Iowa, was impressed, calling him "ever polite, smiling, self-deprecating and unassuming." He is smart and affable, and he listens.
And, for someone who almost became a journalist before he went to law school, Castro is also good at telling a story. Lately, he has posted videos from small towns in Iowa where he talks with local folks about the positive impact of immigration in their communities.
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