Why Julian Castro's Breakout Performance in 1st Democratic Debate Doesn't Surprise Me

Last night marked the first of the two night Democratic presidential candidates debate and former HUD Secretary Julian Castro made the most of his opportunity with a breakout performance. This does not surprise me. Consider what I wrote when he formally entered the race in January:


Under the circumstances, I see Castro as the dark horse in this race. Given his Latin American heritage he could oppose President Trump's immigration policies in a way no one else can and perhaps steal some thunder from fellow Texan Beto O'Rourke.


As it turned out, this was Castro's plan all along & he went right after O'Rourke for opposing the repeal of Section 1325 of Title VIII regarding unlawful entry into the United States.

A case could also be made that Castro stole some of Elizabeth Warren's thunder as well. While Warren performed well, she met expectations. However, Castro exceeded them and made himself the talk of the debate.


It also didn't hurt that Castro came up with the viral line of the night, "Adios, Trump!!!" which is still trending on Twitter at this hour.




Of course, the question is can Castro sustain this momentum. After all, there is another debate tonight and we could easily be talking about Andrew Yang, Marianne Williamson or Eric Swalwell at this time tomorrow.




I suspect that people will give Castro a longer look. The thing that might work against Castro in the long run is that he has described himself as a "centrist" which is almost as dirty a word to leftists as the name Trump. Indeed, Bernie Sanders' supporters made a concerted effort to prevent Hillary Clinton from naming him as her running mate in 2016 citing his policy of selling mortgages to Wall Street during his tenure as HUD Secretary. I have a feeling that Bernie will be Castro's next target when they inevitably share a debate stage.


The bloodletting and reverie have only just begun.