Julian Castro, So-Called Debate Stud, Folded in Dallas When He Was at HUD

[7wo7rees]

From the Dallas Observer, July 8, 2019

"In 2014, Dallas was right on the verge of becoming a bad national poster child for housing discrimination and racial segregation, as it should have been. This had to do with a decades-old pattern by which the city had gulped down hundreds of millions of dollars in HUD money designated by law to reduce racial segregation and had used it instead to increase racial segregation in a heavily subsidized renovation of downtown."

<snip>

"The real machinery of racism is at the level of big government, big policy and the big lie. If Julian Castro was one ounce the big, tough guy he posed as being on that debate stage, he would have done something decisive about racism in housing at the national level when he had the chance at HUD. Instead, he folded."

<snip>

"In the debate, Castro interrupted O’Rourke to speak about a provision of federal law that makes it illegal for undocumented persons to enter the country. O’Rourke tried to give a longer, nuanced answer about comprehensive immigration reform, but Castro talked over him to make him look like an immigration bully, which is absurd.

<snip>

"That kind of fake attack is exactly what I would expect from a guy who folded when it was real. The idea being ballyhooed all over the news media, that Castro is a stud because he talked over O’Rourke, is something I would expect from Facebook, not the news media."

https://www.dallasobserver.com/news/forget-the-debate-julian-castro-was-a-wimp-in-dallas-11702756

We lived through this, and it had a serious effect on the landscape of the city of Dallas. Castro helped the under-served and discriminated population fall between the cracks, in what could have been a smart city of the future, for the people.

BTW Jim Schutze is one of the last vestiges of Molly Ivins in Texas journalism. Read more of him HERE.

[liskddksil]

2. I posted this article 2 days ago and it was deleted within minutes nt.

[dalton99a]

4. Have you seen this one:

https://www.texasobserver.org/how-julian-castros-decade-of-downtown-reshaped-san-antonio/
How Julián Castro’s ‘Decade of Downtown’ Reshaped San Antonio
The presidential hopeful has branded himself as an affordable housing visionary. But his record in San Antonio on this issue is more complicated.
Michael Barajas | Jul 10, 2019, 4:15 pm CST

...

“At first, when he voted with the community, everybody was excited that this was the progressive who was going to change things, but then he flipped,” Graciela Sanchez, a prominent activist who opposed the golf course, said in an interview with the Observer. “Like most ambitious political leaders, it’s not like he didn’t care about the community or wasn’t interested in the struggle. He just became very calculated,” Sanchez said. “He wanted to be mayor.” ...

People who followed Castro’s political career in San Antonio aren’t surprised he’s now standing out from the throng of Democrats running for president. As mayor, he seemed determined to make his mark on the city with big, splashy ideas that grabbed national headlines, like a $30 million sales tax increase to fund pre-K for poor kids throughout the city. ...

Castro himself began to grapple with the unintended consequences of this sea change on his way out of city hall in 2014, when urban redevelopment displaced hundreds of poor and working-class people living in a trailer park on the edge of downtown. Researchers who studied the displacement say three residents died after they were forced to move — two elderly women and a middle-aged man who took his own life. ...

Christine Drennon, an urban studies professor at Trinity University, sat on Castro’s gentrification task force. She says the city has yet to craft an affordable housing plan that can counterbalance the hundreds of millions of dollars in city incentives developers were given to build housing that most San Antonians can’t afford.

“In Secretary Castro’s defense, he came out years later and said we need to stop and think about what we’re doing with all these incentives,” Drennon said. “It was a little late. By that point, he’d basically moved on to bigger and better things.”

[Rstrstx]

5. Castro has likability issues not dissimilar to Hillary

Though to be fair to Hillary he hasn't been pummeled by the right for decades.

And it's kind of a shame, he is talented but I believe he's a bit jealous that Beto has that natural Obamalike amicability that both brothers lack. Like Hillary they like to keep their private life private and rarely open up. Which is unfortunate, because their stories are admirable and a part of the new American story (more so than Beto's flawed but admittedly much more titillating past).

The Castros' tepidness and technocratic tendencies have gotten in their way, and it's one big reason why the bolder Beto is the de facto leader of the Texas Democratic Party right now, he likes and inspires people and they are willing to return the favor for him.

Unfortunately that doesn't seem to have translated to the national stage as he had hoped but by giving it a good run it keeps him relevant for the future (he would make a wonderful governor). Castro on the other hand won't make it through the primaries simply because of his shortcomings as a politician, though he could be gunning for another cabinet post. He can probably forget a VP slot after the swipe at Beto, the only Democrat in TX capable of mounting a ground game serious enough to put the state in play. Piss off Beto's followers and you become more of a liability than an asset. But I get the distinct impression Julian is thinking about leapfrogging TX on his way up the political ladder.