ArcaMax

SAN DIEGO -- Julian Castro is the Rodney Dangerfield of Democratic presidential candidates. He gets no respect.

Now a recent email from his campaign appeared to say he'll get out of the race if he can't meet the polling and fundraising thresholds for the fifth debate in November.

Que? White House bids like this don't come along every day -- or even decade. This historic campaign can't end like this.

In the Rust Belt, many Democratic union members say that life shortchanged them even though they've worked hard and played by the rules.

Well, all his life, Castro has also worked hard and played by the rules. He has always done his homework and aced the quiz. He has earned his moment. Here you have an overachiever who grew up on San Antonio's hardscrabble west side, riding city transit buses because his family couldn't afford a car until he was in high school. He worked his way into Stanford University and Harvard Law School, and then got elected to the San Antonio City Council at 26 and became mayor at 34. He was nominated as secretary of Housing and Urban Development by President Obama, and then Castro ran for the White House even though he wasn't, as he likes to say, "born a front-runner."

Critics say that -- after doing well in the first two debates -- the 45-year-old blew it in the third debate, in Houston, when he attacked Joe Biden by implying that the 76-year-old is not lucid enough to lead. Biden's fellow baby boomers -- who worshiped youth when they were young -- accused the whippersnapper of ageism. But the young man was doing Democrats a favor by pointing out an obvious weakness in their presumptive nominee.

Castro trails badly in fundraising and polling, but he seems to make converts in every crowd he addresses. By earning his way into four presidential debates, he's already placed in the top half of the Democratic field and outlasted members of Congress, governors, a U.S. senator, and the mayor of the nation's largest city.

Nevertheless, elements of Big Media, the Democratic establishment, the punditry, and the entertainment industry can't wait to get Castro out of the race.

The kingmakers and the gatekeepers are put off by that which confuses them. Those with a black-and-white view of politics don't have enough colors in their crayon box to understand the Texan.

Every time that Castro is disrespected, it's a slap in the face to nearly 30 million Mexican Americans who have contributed enormously to this country.

...continued