Castro deserves good look after breakout performance in debate

Julián Castro, the former mayor of San Antonio, is prepared to take on President Donald Trump in 2020.

Whether he’ll get the opportunity is a different question, of course. There’s plening. ty of reason to be skeptical of Castro’s prospects in the crowded Democratic primary field, even after his breakout performance in the first of two candidate debates last week.

Former Vice President Joe Biden remains the clear frontrunner, even after his uneven debate show-AUSTIN As the week began, just 0.8 percent of Democratic primary voters listed Castro as their top choice.

Further complicating matters for Castro has been that he isn’t the only Texan in the field — and the other, former U.S. Rep. Beto O’Rourke, became a rock star of sorts after a surprisingly strong challenge to Republican U.S. Ted Cruz last year. But O’Rourke has struggled to gain traction in his presidential campaign and he didn’t appear to help himself at the forum.

So before last week, Castro was largely overlooked by national political observers. He also elicits a certain degree of resentment among progressives, here in his home state, over the fact that he took a pass on running statewide in 2018.

Still, I was hoping that Castro would make the most of his time on the debate stage, because he has many of the attributes that voters seem to be looking for in a standard-bearer for the Democratic Party and in a potential challenger to Trump specifically.

The 44-year-old Castro embodies decency and self-discipline — virtues that Republicans quietly agree the president lacks,

even if they’re happy with his judicial appointments and policy stances.

And Castro, former secretary for the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, is proving himself capable of both listening and

leading. Voters who had never heard of him prior to the debate might have noticed as much during the course of the evening.

At one point, for example, Castro reminded the audience of the black and Latino Americans —

including Sandra Bland, Eric Garner, Tamir Rice, Laquan McDonald, Pamela Turner and Antonio Arce — who have lost their lives as a result of police brutality. It was a resonant moment — and an impressive one, because the question that had been put to him was whether an “economic justice” agenda was sufficient for mobilizing the Latino voters that Democrats need.

“I’m proud that I’m the only candidate so far that has put forward legislation that would reform our policing system in America, and make sure that no matter what the color of your skin is, that you’re treated the same,” Castro said.

Castro is also the only candidate who has treated immigration as a priority issue. In fact,

O’Rourke is the only other contender who has even bothered to put forward an immigration proposal. That led to a heated exchange during Wednesday’s debate, after Castro challenged all of his rivals join him in calling for repeal of the section of the federal code that defines illegal entry as a criminal offense rather than a civil one. Castro singled out the more moderate O’Rourke, specifically, as one who has declined to do so.

As a Texan, I took no pleasure in the exchange. Castro was probably right to say that O’Rourke hasn’t done his homework on the law. In fairness, though, O’Rourke has been pretty busy these past few years, and often advocated for migrant families while crisscrossing Texas during the Senate campaign. Most of the Democrats running for president have been downright lackadaisical on immigration compared with these two.

And ultimately, I’d save my sharpest rebuke for the national media observers who were surprised by Castro’s performance, especially since most of them heralded O’Rourke’s decision to run for president.

The national hype that O’Rourke received in 2018 wasn’t unwarranted; he worked tirelessly on a genuinely phenomenal campaign. But many of the pundits who took notice seemed to think that O’Rourke was solely responsible for the tectonic shift in Texas politics during that cycle, which really isn’t the case.

Trump’s election was a sucker punch for many Americans, and a number of Texans responded by rising to the occasion in various ways. O’Rourke, for example, launched a Senate campaign. Castro began preparing to run for president, and his hard work paid off last week. Beyond his strong grasp of the issues, his line “Adios to Donald Trump” became a viral hashtag.

As a result of this debate, Castro can count on getting a hearing. I suspect he’ll make good use of it.