Jim Geraghty on San Antonio Mayor Julian Castro, the Great Brown Hope

 
It’s showtime: San Antonio “Mayor” Julian Castro, with his stage makeup on

By Nicholas Stix

Geraghty has a good review of Democrats’ plan to make Castro, “The Post-Hispanic Hispanic Politician” (New York Times),” a do-nothing mayor in a city in which mayors are part-timers, have no power, and are paid only about $3,000 per year, the next affirmative action president.

(When the New York Times calls an affirmative action group member the “post”-X, it is not being ironic. Rather, it is unwittingly signaling, like when it refuses to report the arrest of a violent criminal still at large, the very fact which it seeks to hide: In this case, that Castro is a Hispanic racial hustler.

And to those who will say, “Hispanic” isn’t a racial category, I say: Politically, it is, because it now means “mestizo,” or racially loyal to mestizos. Even white Hispanics, who in private obsess over their whiteness, publicly emphasize their loyalty to mestizos.)

Geraghty points out that San Antonio has serious problems with crime and education that are not getting any better, and that its current economic strength is due not at all to Castro, but to a massive increase in Pentagon spending, due to a consolidation that has cost other cities; Texas’ generally positive economic climate; and the desperate state of other cities that makes San Antone’s mild economic improvement look great in comparison.

My only beefs with Geraghty are with his refusal to make explicit things that must be made explicit—San Antonio is a Democratic stronghold, because it is a Hispanic stronghold—and his description of Castro as “charismatic.” Castro is photogenic, at least with his pancake makeup on; that is a far-cry from charismatic. If I remember my Weber correctly, to paraphrase, a charismatic leader is one you’d be willing to die for. Not only is Castro not a “charismatic leader,” he’s not a leader, period. He’s a figurehead.

To those readers who may think I am demanding crudity of Geraghty, I recall my days during the 1990s, when I was college teacher and freelance writer, and missed all sorts of facts the media glossed over or misrepresented that I now know, due to researching them 70 hours per week.

And after years of Republican propaganda asserting that Hispanics are turning into GOP voters, readers need to be explicitly told that no, Hispanics vote Democrat 2-1, and that is not going to get better.

As a two-term mayor, Julián Castro looks and sounds the part of a leader. He just doesn’t have the record of accomplishments that used to be a traditional requirement in American politics.” [“Loud Praise for a Mayor of Quiet Record,” by Jim Geraghty, National Review Online, August 8, 2012 4:00 a.m.]

Geraghty’s problem isn’t that he’s suave or subtle; his problem is that he writes for National Review.