I have three things to say about this.
Mayor Julian Castro
Housing and Urban Development Secretary Julián Castro is on the shortlist of potential running mates for Hillary Clinton, and has been asked by her campaign to provide personal information, San Antonio Express-News sources have confirmed.
Citing Democratic sources, reports said that in addition to Castro, a pared-down list the Clinton campaign is considering includes Virginia Sen. Tim Kaine and Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren and that others also may yet be in the running.
[…]
Campaign insiders at the Bipartisan Policy Center recommended this spring that because of the high stakes, presidential nominees devote at least two months vetting potential running mates, which includes digging into their finances, their family history and even their social media posts.
But Clinton, who has been a fixture in Democratic politics for more than two decades, apparently feels secure in a more compressed time frame. She’s not expected to announce her choice until — or just before — Democrats gather in Philadelphia on July 25 for their nominating convention.
Castro’s chances were widely thought to have dimmed with the rise of presumptive GOP nominee Donald Trump, whose incendiary remarks about people of Mexican heritage had functioned to energize Latino voters.
Castro, who would be the first Latino on a major party ticket, may yet fall short given his lack of experience.
The Associated Press reported that supporters of Castro, 41, said he would bring other advantages, among them his relative youth alongside Clinton, 68, and some of the other potential running mates. In her challenge from Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, Clinton struggled to attract young voters to her cause.
U.S. Rep. Xavier Becerra of California and Labor Secretary Thomas Perez also have been mentioned on a list of Hispanic candidates who could be appealing to Clinton.
Warren, who turns 67 on June 22, is a favorite of many Sanders backers for her outspoken liberal views, particularly when it comes to regulating Wall Street. She and Clinton have not been close, but the two met recently in Washington after Clinton’s victory over Sanders became clear.
Kaine, 58, who’s known as a centrist in the party, had emerged as a favorite of some party insiders because he might appeal to independents and address another of Clinton’s weaknesses — her problem with Anglo male voters.
1. It was just a month ago that Castro himself was saying that he was not being vetted for the VP job. Things can change in a hurry, so perhaps one should not take any single story about the VP selection process with too much seriousness.
2. I agree with Brian Beutler that Hillary Clinton has the luxury of being able to pick any reasonable candidate as her VP, and I agree with Matt Yglesias that her first priority should be to pick someone whom she would like as her successor in 2024. Beyond that, I don’t really have an opinion on whom she should pick.
3. What effect might Castro have on Democratic prospects in Texas? I don’t know, but a lot of people think he would be good for Dems here. I tend to think so, too, but you know how we could try to answer that question? With some polling, of course. We finally have a poll now, but it doesn’t address that question. Perhaps another poll, assuming it happens before any VP announcements are made, could include some questions pairing Clinton with this VP hopeful or that one to see if any of them make a difference one way or another. My guess is that any such effect would be modest, but why guess? Give us a poll! Campos and the Current have more.
UPDATE: One national poll suggests Castro doesn’t move the needle much if at all in either direction. That’s not the same as seeing if he has an effect in Texas, but it is a data point.
Castro’s claim to fame seems to be the ill fated plan to provide Section 8 welfare recipients rentals in upscale parts of San Antonio, where those renters brought crime and urban blight with them. We saw our own version of this as the Goforth shooter and his mother were relocated by the Houston Housing Authority from wherever they were to Copperfield, where he could just walk to the Shell station out in the suburbs and gun down Goforth.
Sorry, but the experiment failed, yet Castro wants to go national with it, spending even more taxpayer money to relocate the poor in affluent areas. We have already seen that doesn’t uplift the poor, it merely brings crime and lower property values to the people who have worked hard NOT to live in the ghetto.
really Bill? not a single poor person was uplifted?
Edit: I meant Dallas, not San Antonio
@Jules: Was a single person uplifted? Possible. Was it worth it? Well, the taxpayers spent more money per welfare recipient, so it’s bad for the taxpayers, and for those who worked hard to try and live in a safe, clean area, it didn’t work out so well.
Maybe the folks who push this kind of thing should be relocated to live among the Section 8 set so they can see first hand exactly what they are trying to unleash on the rest of society.
The whole thing boggles the mind. Hey, I had 4 kids and dropped out of high school. It’s just not fair that I can’t live in West U.
Castro: Hey, we will have our “mobility counselor” help you move to West U., or the Heights, because you have as much right to live there as anyone else. So what if you made a series of bad decisions in you life. You deserve it, and we’ll get those mean ole’ taxpayers to pay for your new lifestyle! They are just a bunch of boring stiffs that didn’t have kids they can’t afford, didn’t go to prison, etc. Bunch of stiffs, really. We will make them pay for their arrogance, and move you next door to them.
I’m all for Texans in the administration, but the pundits are looking at the wrong dimension on this one. Clinton needs a Sanders-approved VP, not only to keep his followers from sitting out the election, but for what is sometimes called “impeachment insurance”. Remember how Obama was declared a “failed president” before he even took office? You know that some crazy republican will file Trumped-up (sorry, couldn’t resist) impeachment charges within days of Clinton’s inauguration. She needs to have a farther-left successor in line so that the non-deranged congressional contingent will know that conviction will lead to nothing but more of what they hate.