Castro looks back at his presidential bid
Ex-mayor of San Antonio calls for Democrats to look beyond beating Trump in 2020 election
SAN ANTONIO — Traveling America in his recently aborted bid for the presidency, former San Antonio Mayor Julián Castro said he managed to find good Mexican food even in Iowa and South Carolina and was reminded that people everywhere are refreshingly friendly.
He also uncovered a darker truth about the mood of Democrats.
“There was a very clear strain of anxiety, of the urgency of defeating Donald Trump because he’s been a uniquely bad president,” Castro said Saturday. “The electorate is in a certain mood right now. A cautious mood. A mood of replacing Donald Trump and thinking about more than that later.”
Throughout his long-shot campaign, Castro insisted that the Democratic primary electorate should think about more than just defeating Trump. He pushed voters to care about the poor and the homeless; to consider the fears of minorities caught in the glare of police lights; and to imagine a more humane way to greet unauthorized immigrants at the border.
But Castro’s message of racial and economic justice failed to catch on with voters. Despite bursts of momentum, he languished at 1 or 2 percent in polls nationally. On Thursday, he announced that he was ending his presidential bid.
“My vision was for an America where everyone counts,” Castro, 45, said. “That’s the vision that I laid out in uncompromising terms. I knew that wouldn’t be an easy vision for a lot of people to accept or to champion than perhaps a more comfortable vision for the future. But if you’re going to run for president, I think you need to lay it all out there.”
Castro sat in a conference room at his campaign headquarters near downtown surrounded by reminders of a once-hopeful campaign. Artwork celebrating his homegrown candidacy decorated the room. On a nearby wall, campaign staff had scribbled their answers to the question, “Why are you on Team Julián?”
“Because I felt SEEN,” wrote one.
Castro said the “hesitancy” of Democrats to embrace his vision is not necessarily unique to the Trump era.
“It’s harder to sell in the Donald Trump era,” he said. “But you think about American history, you think the New Deal, the Great Society, the civil rights legislation, the 13th, 14th and 15th amendments —
rarely in American history has the country completely embraced and moved forward with action toward a vision for full equality and helping those that are among the most marginalized.
“One of the things that I’m proud of is I believe we put forward a vision that addressed both racial justice and economic justice better than any other candidate — more boldly, more articulately than any other candidate in the race. My hope is that this will become a blueprint for others later.”
The spectacle of an electorate too cautious to embrace Castro upended a narrative that has dogged the former mayor for years: that Castro himself is too cautious in his politics, too wary to run for the Senate, for instance, in a state that has long shunned Democrats.
Castro said the mettle he displayed on the national stage has always been part of his political DNA. He noted the San Antonio City Council’s passage of a resolution when he was mayor nearly a decade ago opposing Arizona’s controversial immigration law, and he recalled his televised clash with Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick in 2014 over immigration policy.
“Is it fair to say at some points I’ve been cautious on certain things? Of course, because I wanted to make sure we had success in certain things,” Castro said. “But I’ve also gone out there and swung for the fences on plenty of things, whether it was pre-K or stepping up to take on … Dan Patrick when other people wouldn’t.”
Before Castro was disqualified from the debate stage in November and December due to low polling numbers, he unleashed a couple of withering attacks on his fellow Democrats. The first was on Beto O’Rourke, whom he blasted onstage for not doing his “homework” on immigration law.
The second came during an exchange with former Vice President Joe Biden over health care policy. Castro skewered Biden with a line that was widely seen as a swipe at Biden’s age.
“Are you forgetting already what you said just two minutes ago?” Castro said to Biden, who is 77.
While Castro’s takedown of O’Rourke gave his campaign a boost, his attack on Biden — and the backlash it provoked — seemed to blunt any momentum. Castro reiterated on Saturday that his remark had nothing to do with Biden’s age.
“A narrative developed very early on, moments after that exchange, based on what the media had been writing about a candidate,” he said. “And they fit those remarks immediately into that narrative. And I said right after the debate and since then that our conversation was about the disagreement in policy and what was said or not said in that exchange.”
Castro doesn’t buy that his clash with Biden compromised his campaign. In the end, he blamed a variety of factors.
“I started this campaign from scratch,” he said, “without the name ID, without the decades of a national political presence, without some of the tools that are essential today like a big email list to raise money from.”
Other factors: “At base, a lack of resources,” said Castro, who launched his campaign a year ago. “Obviously, a message that some people responded to very well, but for whatever reason this time there was a good number of folks who were looking for a different message. And all of the other parts of the ecosystem you deal with: the media coverage, where we start off these campaigns, the feeling, the anxiety of the Trump era and the cautiousness. All of those things.”
Castro raised about $10 million last year for his campaign, compared with more than $100 million raised by Bernie Sanders.
Castro acknowledged his campaign could have done some things better, but he declined to specify them. He also demurred on the question of whether he would run for office again. But he signaled he wants to stay in the fight.
“We built a strong vision for the future of the country and, I believe, a lot of goodwill out there,” he said. “I look forward to doing what I can to make sure that the Democratic nominee wins in 2020. I’m going to work as hard as I can for the Democratic nominee. We absolutely have to defeat Donald Trump.”
In his own defeat, Castro said he hasn’t been embittered.
“It was almost all positive,” he said. “I’m coming out of it with a positive sense of what’s possible. Obviously, all of us have our frustrations with the process. It never feels good not to win. Anybody who’s running for president is probably a type-A personality that is used to succeeding and you don’t like to lose. And it never feels good to lose.”
He continued, “At the same time, I’m walking away with a sense that we did the right thing. We spoke up for people who needed a voice. And even a lot of the people out there who weren’t necessarily supportive of my candidacy particularly, they said, ‘Hey, look, I like you. You’re a good guy. You have a future, you know. I hope you continue to contribute.’ I appreciate that.”