Castro, O’Rourke tackling racism
Former San Antonio mayor gets into next Dem debate, thanks to late poll
WASHINGTON – Julián Castro averted a crippling blow to his quest for the 2020 Democratic nomination thanks to a polling bump Tuesday that arrived as he increasingly focuses on attacking racism and President Donald Trump.
Since the massacre in El Paso by a gunman who targeted Latinos, Texas presidential contender Beto O’Rourke’s pivot has been even more jarring, refocusing his campaign around some of the bluntest talk about race in modern American politics.
“This country, though we would like to think otherwise, was founded on racism, has existed through racism and is racist today,” the former U.S. representative from El Paso said during a speech in Arkansas on Saturday night.
The Aug. 3 El Paso killings have altered the presidential campaigns of both Texans, and race is the issue reigniting them.
Their travels are matching their words.
Castro, the only Democrat in the 2020 contest to forward a broad proposal for American Indians, on Tuesday addressed the LaMere Native American Presidential Forum in Sioux City, Iowa.
His policy offerings this week won him endorsements from key indigenous peoples’ leaders nationally and in Iowa and Arizona.
After O’Rourke’s speech in Little Rock — which has drawn a striking 2.8 million views on Twitter — he visited a historic site in Oklahoma, which has voted for a Democrat for president just once in the past 64 years.
The history that drew
O’Rourke? “Black Wall Street” in Tulsa, where mobs of whites attacked blacks and their prosperous shops in the 1920s, killing dozens in one of the worst incidents of racial violence in American history.
The Democrats’ recent focus draws scorn from opponents on social media, often from Republicans who contend candidates go too far in condemning America.
Austin-based GOP consultant Brendan Steinhauser said Democrats “are overplaying their hand” on race.
“We all know that slavery was part of our history and that we’re not perfect. But we know how far we’ve come,” he said. “I think that swing voters, independents, suburban voters — the people everybody is going after — understand that.”
Steinhauser said he sees political danger in a race-based approach.
“It’s like that Merle Haggard song, ‘when they’re running down our country, they’re walking on the fighting side of me.’”
‘It’s personal’
Castro and O’Rourke both will take part in the next round of candidate debates, in Houston on Sept. 12 and possibly Sept. 13.
O’Rourke’s presence had been assured by having met both the donor and polling criteria set by the Democratic National Committee to winnow down the field of 20 aspirants who competed on stage two nights in June and then in July.
As it stands, 10 candidates have qualified for Houston, the most the DNC will permit on stage in one evening. More late qualifiers would mean two nights of debating by smaller groups — and therefore a different dynamic than in the earlier debates.
Castro’s ticket to Houston arrived with a CNN poll Tuesday that measured his support at 2 percent, the fourth poll since June to do so.
O’Rourke scored only a hair better at 3 percent in the poll, another led by former Vice President Joe Biden in a race that has been remarkably stable for months.
The DNC has given those who won’t qualify by Aug. 28 a few more weeks to meet the criteria in time for a debate in October. Even so, for candidates missing the Houston stage, the perception of failure — with its message to donors — well may be too much to overcome.
For Castro, failing to stand on the stage in his home state would have been an especially bitter pill, and as recently as Saturday, the former San Antonio mayor struck a desperate tone in a fundraising appeal.
“I need to be completely honest here. I might not make the cut for the next debates,” the email read.
Castro had planned to soldier on in the contest even if the CNN poll hadn’t arrived in the nick of time, according to his campaign.
Castro has not been prone to moderation over the seven months of his campaign, offering a host of bold policy offerings ranging from decriminalizing border crossings to policing reforms.
But his campaign has had a new edge and a different feel since Aug. 3 — which showed up in the following days by releasing a plan aimed at rooting out white nationalism that calls for federal gun licensing.
“This issue is not only political, it’s personal,” he said, referring to the worst anti-Latino massacre in modern American history.
“My wife, Erica, an educator, and I are raising a daughter and son who both have brown skin. … They should be able to grow up free from fear of hate and safe from gun violence,” he said.
Unvarnished responses
With the reckoning of the Houston debate drawing nearer, Castro went so far as to blame Trump for El Paso with an ad purchased in the president’s favorite TV venue — Fox News.
“Innocent people were shot down because they looked different from you. … Words have consequences. Ya Basta,” Castro said in the ad, concluding with a Spanish phrase that translates roughly to “enough is enough.”
Castro followed that up with a new ad in Iowa this week again speaking directly to Trump, tailored to gain attention with his debate qualifying deadline closing in.
The ad, already viewed more than 200,000 times, opens with Castro speaking from an empty warehouse in Iowa.
Standing alone, Castro says: “I’m sorry that your presidency is failing. Drug prices are up. The immigration crisis is worse. The debt has exploded. Job growth has slowed. Not a lot to run on there. So you’re trying to distract us and divide us with dangerous and hateful rhetoric.”
O’Rourke, after pausing his campaign for two weeks, emerged with a newly energized effort that has focused on systemic discrimination.
In Oklahoma this week, he noted the murders of Native American women as an ongoing chapter of a broken trust with American Indians that began with extermination and stolen land 150 years ago.
“If we do not acknowledge that and include everyone in the story of this country — its success, its greatness, its failures — then we’re never going to assure that there is justice,” he said.
Brandon Rottinghaus, a University of Houston political science professor and author, says the tragedy in El Paso turned into a wake-up call for O’Rourke and that what people are hearing from him “is as honest and as personal as we’ve seen from a presidential candidate in 30 years.”
Castro, too, has embraced a different approach, Rottinghaus says, “almost an angry tact, which isn’t something we typically see from presidential candidates, who normally are more even keel trying to project a presidential image.”
He sees rewards for both. “I think Democratic voters want the varnish off this election and are looking for honest and bold responses to the events they see happening,” he said. “This may be a moment that rewards a personal and even angry view of what’s happening in the world.”