{"id":149900,"date":"2016-05-07T21:57:06","date_gmt":"2016-05-08T03:57:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/?p=149900"},"modified":"2016-05-07T21:57:06","modified_gmt":"2016-05-08T03:57:06","slug":"democrats-mull-julian-castros-vice-presidential-prospects","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/2016\/05\/democrats-mull-julian-castros-vice-presidential-prospects\/","title":{"rendered":"Democrats mull Juli\u00e1n Castro&#8217;s vice presidential prospects"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"attachment_149904\"  class=\"wp-caption module image alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 771px;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-large wp-image-149904\" src=\"http:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/05\/Castro-Julian-771x512.jpg\" alt=\"Juli\u00e1n Castro\" width=\"771\" height=\"512\" srcset=\"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/05\/Castro-Julian-771x512.jpg 771w, https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/05\/Castro-Julian-336x223.jpg 336w, https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/05\/Castro-Julian-768x510.jpg 768w, https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/05\/Castro-Julian.jpg 800w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 771px) 100vw, 771px\" \/><p class=\"wp-media-credit\">Bob Daemmrich \/ The Texas Tribune<\/p><p class=\"wp-caption-text\">U.S. Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Juli\u00e1n Castro<\/p><\/div>\n<p>WASHINGTON \u2014 Only a year ago, Democrats far and wide treated U.S. Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Juli\u00e1n\u00a0Castro as the most likely\u00a0vice presidential pick for a Hillary Clinton ticket.<\/p>\n<p>Young and Hispanic, the former San Antonio mayor posed a perfect complement to the former New York senator and Secretary of State.<\/p>\n<aside class=\"module align-left half type-aside\">\n<h3>About this article<\/h3>\n<p>This article originally appeared in <a href=\"https:\/\/www.texastribune.org\/2016\/05\/07\/julian-castro-vice-president\/\" target=\"_blank\">The Texas Tribune<\/a>,\u00a0a nonpartisan, nonprofit media organization that informs Texans and engages with them about public policy, politics, government and statewide issues.<\/p>\n<\/aside>\n<p>But in recent weeks, speculation about\u00a0Castro&#8217;s chances has grown more muted. The names of other\u00a0contenders are being bandied about\u00a0amid the most consuming question in Democratic politics right now: Whom might\u00a0Clinton pick as her running mate?<\/p>\n<p>Sources close to the Clinton campaign \u2014 who declined to be named because they aren&#8217;t authorized to speak on the record\u00a0\u2014 say there are strong signs the formal process of vetting prospects has begun and that Castro is indeed\u00a0on the short-list.\u00a0A Clinton spokesperson declined to comment for this article.<\/p>\n<p>But besides Castro,\u00a0interviews with nearly three dozen Democratic consultants, operatives and elected officials revealed the names\u00a0of\u00a0several other possible\u00a0contenders: U.S. Sens. Cory Booker of New Jersey, Sherrod Brown of Ohio, Tim Kaine of Virginia and Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota; Govs. John Hickenlooper of Colorado and Terry McAuliffe of Virginia; former Gov. Deval Patrick of Massachusetts; and U.S. Labor Secretary Tom Perez.\u00a0U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren also surfaces in some of\u00a0these conversations,\u00a0identified\u00a0as\u00a0an option\u00a0to placate the restive, anti-Clinton\u00a0followers of presidential hopeful Bernie\u00a0Sanders.<\/p>\n<p>The vice presidential\u00a0selection process is cloak-and-dagger on a scale unlike anything else in politics, and\u00a0Clinton&#8217;s\u00a0inner circle is successfully keeping even the smallest details secret. For one, she&#8217;s\u00a0not yet\u00a0the party nominee, though she&#8217;s closing in on presumptive status with her almost insurmountable delegate lead over Sanders, the\u00a0Vermont senator.<\/p>\n<p>If\u00a0Clinton secures the nomination, she will likely weigh the political strengths of those on her short list against their ability to serve as president if the unthinkable occurs,\u00a0said Ben LaBolt, who was a spokesman for both of President Obama&#8217;s presidential campaigns.<\/p>\n<p>As for Castro, there is near-uniform agreement that he would bring\u00a0unique strengths and weaknesses\u00a0to a Clinton ticket.<!--more--><\/p>\n<p>Castro came to Washington almost two years ago, after President Obama nominated him to the Cabinet. Previously, he served for five years as San Antonio mayor. Ivy League-educated and attractive, Castro was first elevated to\u00a0the national stage when Obama named him keynote speaker of the 2012 Democratic National Convention.<\/p>\n<p>Castro, 41, also brings to the table one of the best surrogates in Democratic politics: his twin brother, U.S. Rep. <a href=\"http:\/\/www.texastribune.org\/directory\/joaquin-castro\/\" target=\"_blank\">Joaquin Castro<\/a> of San Antonio. And he\u00a0has advocates who wield influence in the Clinton sphere: former Texas Land Commissioner Garry Mauro and\u00a0former San Antonio Mayor Henry Cisneros, who was Bill Clinton&#8217;s first appointee at HUD.<\/p>\n<p>His fans say\u00a0Juli\u00e1n\u00a0Castro could\u00a0motivate young people \u2014 many of whom have been emboldened by Sanders&#8217; campaign \u2014 and Hispanics to the polls, helping\u00a0Clinton recreate the coalition of millennials and minorities that sent Obama to the White House.<\/p>\n<p>Furthermore, the future of Texas is on the minds of Democrats nationally. While they&#8217;re\u00a0realistic about Texas&#8217; current political state \u2014 it is a conservative behemoth on the map \u2014 its\u00a0rapid Hispanic growth lends hope to many in the party\u00a0that it\u00a0could be a battleground state down the road.<\/p>\n<p>The Castro\u00a0brothers worked\u00a0Texas\u00a0hard during the Clinton campaign&#8217;s February sprint\u00a0here.\u00a0The state&#8217;s March\u00a0primary\u00a0win came\u00a0at a crucial time for Clinton: Her Iowa victory\u00a0had been\u00a0narrow, and Sanders\u00a0had\u00a0wiped her out in New Hampshire.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Certainly, Juli\u00e1n\u00a0Castro and his brother can help make&#8221; Texas more competitive for Democrats,\u00a0Dallas Democratic fundraiser Cappy McGarr said.<\/p>\n<p>There could be\u00a0drawbacks to Castro, too,\u00a0including his experience and ambition.<\/p>\n<p>Vice President Joe Biden&#8217;s\u00a036 years in the Senate provided\u00a0knowledge and relationships that\u00a0aided\u00a0the president legislatively.\u00a0Castro, meanwhile,\u00a0was only sworn into office 21 months ago and has\u00a0faced growing pains in his Cabinet role,\u00a0including some\u00a0rocky Congressional hearings.<\/p>\n<p>But Democrats argue not much has\u00a0happened in the past year to diminish Castro&#8217;s odds. Instead, they say\u00a0the speculation that he was a foregone vice presidential pick was premature.<\/p>\n<p>With Donald Trump the presumptive GOP nominee, there will now\u00a0be other political factors for Clinton to\u00a0consider: whom Trump chooses as his running mate, which states his campaign targets, and whether his candidacy means Clinton must\u00a0court white,\u00a0blue-collar men in Rust Belt states over Latinos in the Southwest.<\/p>\n<p>But the most important will likely be rapport.\u00a0Stephanie Cutter, a senior aide at the center of both Obama and 2004 Democratic nominee John Kerry&#8217;s vice presidential vettings, argues interpersonal chemistry is key.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Pressuring the nominee to pick a certain person from a certain region doesn\u2019t help the process,&#8221; Cutter said.\u00a0&#8220;&#8230; The most important criteria for the vice presidential pick is to have chemistry and a real partnership with the nominee, and voters can smell it when it\u2019s not there.&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A year ago, Democrats treated HUD Secretary and former San Antonio Mayor Juli\u00e1n Castro as the most likely vice presidential pick for a Hillary Clinton ticket. But in recent weeks, speculation about his chances has grown more muted.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":149904,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[708,226,116],"class_list":["post-149900","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news-and-analysis","tag-2016-election","tag-presidential-race","tag-washington"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/149900","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=149900"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/149900\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/149904"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=149900"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=149900"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=149900"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}