You are not worthy!!!
That pretty much sums up the brutal assessment of Housing and Urban Development Secretary Julian Castro by Dylan Matthews of Vox. He was listing the pros and cons of various possible running mates for Hillary Clinton. Most of them seemed weighted on the pro side but when it came to Castro, the cons screamed off the page in a most cruel way that overwhelmed whatever pros he has according to Matthews:
Even with the Cabinet position, Castro simply is not qualified to be one heartbeat away from the presidency. Mayor of San Antonio is just not a very powerful position. The city runs on a council-manager system, where the appointed city manager actually wields executive power while the mayor serves as a glorified council member and has a kind of bully pulpit.
And the city itself is limited in its powers relative to Bexar County. When Castro was mayor, it was a part-time job paying $3,000 a year plus $20 a council session. It’s fine to have a part-time job, but it doesn’t really prepare you for the presidency.
Nor has Castro really proven himself at HUD. For one thing, despite the name, HUD doesn't really control federal housing policy, which mostly happens through the tax code. Under him, HUD has issued a couple of worthy new policies, including new fair housing rules and a ban on smoking in public housing, but it’s not clear how much Castro was behind them or whether another secretary would have done exactly the same. He has at the same time taken considerable flak from progressive groups for selling bad mortgages HUD acquired to Wall Street.
This pretty much echos the Politico portrayal of Castro as an incompetent lightweight at HUD last January:
When detailed policy questions about housing and mortgage financing came up, those people said, he’d freeze up. He seems genuinely interested in helping people, they’d say, but not interested enough in HUD policy to want to engage deeply.
Quite a comedown for someone who just a year ago was considered as Hillary Clinton's presumptive VP in waiting. Oh, and has Julian Castro learned to speak Spanish yet?
