Caucus season is ninety some days away and the season of Iowa’s political importance will soon come to an end but for now the candidates are going all in on the Hawkeye State. Pete Buttigieg and Amy Klobuchar are making hard plays for the moderates. Kamala Harris and Corey Booker are in this fight for the people. Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders are pushing bold messages.
And then there’s former Housing Secretary Julián Castro. Cash is tight on this campaign but no one else is going to the places he is going. And very few candidates are actually talking to the people he is meeting face to face. You may not know much about Secretary Castro or the kind of campaign he is running.
You should.
It has been a long time since I wrote a diary here. Iowa in caucus season is a whole other animal. Honestly I’ve never seen anything quite like it. From the State Fair to the Steak Fry to the Liberty and Justice Dinner last night the process has been in full swing for quite some time. And the campaigns are going all out. There are signs and bullhorns and and marching bands and rallies and celebrities all around. And the money that is being spent on this has to be staggering.
But Julián Castro is definitely doing things differently. To say that he has been flying under the radar would be an obvious understatement. Last month he set a goal of $800K by Halloween in order to stay in the race. He raised just over $1M and will be in this race for the foreseeable future. And that is important for this race, this party, and this country.
Julián and his twin brother Joaquin were raised on the West side of San Antonio by a single mother who was raised by a single mother that immigrated at the age of 12 from Mexico after she lost her parents.
The closest relatives lived in San Antonio so she was sent across the border.
Victoria Castro was pulled out of school early to work to support the family.
She worked as a cook, a maid, and a baby sitter for decades. And she raised Rosie on her own.
Rosie, the twins’ mother, went on to university and worked to organize her community. She ran for city council in the seventies at a time when San Antonio did not apportion representatives geographically. Everyone ran at large. Rosie went on to become a fierce advocate for farm workers and the LatinX community in Texas and across the country.
Julián Castro is not your average politician. He is a kind and decent man who was raised by fierce women in de facto segregated public schools. He and his brother made it through Stanford and Harvard Law before returning home to pursue public service. And that is how both brothers view it, service. They use their voices to speak for the people they grew up with and they speak loudly and without fear.
Last week Julián Castro was in Washington, DC where he toured the DC jail and met with inmates working in a diversion and training program. He spoke with several but, more importantly, he listened to their concerns.
And that’s the kind of thing this candidate is doing. He is meeting the people where they are. And he is speaking for those on the margins about police reform, gun violence, poverty, lack of healthcare.
Over the summer Castro toured the storm drainage tunnels beneath the Strip in Las Vegas because that is where people are living. It is the one place they can go to escape the heat.
Yesterday a housing forum in Des Moines was cancelled because not enough candidates could commit to it. (see the above part about rallies and bands and celebrities for reference) Julián Castro visited one of the local YMCAs to learn about the work that they are doing to fight poverty and homelessness. And he was doing this hours before what might be his last best chance to speak to Iowa caucus goers.
Julián Castro is going to the places that most of us don’t know about or choose to ignore. He visited Matamoros Mexico to visit potential immigrants who are subjected to the Remain in Mexico policy. While there he met 1 disabled and 12 LGBTQ people who are afforded special protections under immigration law. He brought them to the border and met with officials to encourage them to let these people in.
Castro was able to get them expedited hearings but all were back in Matamoros by the end of the day after officials refused all 13 entry. This was a huge step for those 13 individuals but it makes a statement about everyone that remains along the border waiting for an administration that refuses to treat them as human beings.
I could give you a list of policy positions as long as your arm. I could detail his executive experience at HUD and as the youngest mayor of the 7th largest city in the nation. I could remind you that he is the first Latino to run for the presidency. I could tell you about Maya Rupert who runs the campaign. I could tell you about the flow of money that his announcement brought in this month.
But more than anything I want to tell you about this campaign and how Julián Castro is doing this differently than I have ever seen. Julián is truly putting People First. He has more than just a list of plans. He has an integrated approach to change the way that we live in this country.