LAS VEGAS (AP) — Democratic presidential candidate Julian Castro said Thursday that his twin brother, Rep. Joaquin Castro of Texas, is considering a big run of his own in 2020 — a bid for U.S. Senate against Republican John Cornyn.
“He’s considering that, but he really has not made a decision about whether he’s going to do that. I would imagine he would make a decision at some point soon,” Julian Castro told The Associated Press during a campaign stop in Nevada.
In Texas, no clear rival has yet emerged to take on Cornyn, who until this year was the No. 2 Republican in the Senate before being term-limited out of that leadership role.
Beto O’Rourke’s narrow loss to Republican U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz in November breathed new life into long-suffering Texas Democrats, who haven’t won a statewide office since 1994. As recently as last week, O’Rourke had suggested he may consider challenging Cornyn, but taking another run at the Senate is looking less likely as he promises to announce a decision soon on a 2020 presidential run .
A spokesman for Joaquin Castro did not immediately comment.
Democrats are searching for a challenger to Cornyn, who has comfortably won re-election since joining the Senate in 2003. So far, no other prominent Texas Democrats have signaled interest.
Joaquin Castro is the campaign chairman of his brother’s presidential campaign. But his own profile is also rising in Congress, where he is chairman of the Hispanic Caucus and sponsored a measure passed Tuesday that would stymie President Donald Trump’s bid for billions of extra dollars for a U.S.-Mexico border wall.
The resolution would block Trump’s national emergency declaration and is now before the Republican-run Senate, where there are enough GOP defections to edge the resolution to the brink of passage. Cornyn has said he will vote against the measure.
“I think he’d beat him. My brother would win,” Julian Castro said. “There are a lot of Texans that clearly have problems with the way that he has represented the state. Most recently, refusing to stand up to Trump even though a lot of land is going to get taken, a lot of Texas landowners’ property is going to get taken if there’s a wall.”
The Castros started their political careers around similar times but took different directions. Joaquin Castro made a slow climb to Congress after a decade in the state legislature, while Julian Castro quickly received national attention after being elected San Antonio mayor at age 34.
I endorse whoever can take out any Republican senator, especially in Texas. If that is Joaquin Castro, great. If that is Beto O’Rourke, great. We already have better ideas. We just need candidates with credibility and strong local appeal.
I think they are telling Beto “We’ve got this.”
There was this 70’s Spanish movie called Esperame en el Cielo (the title of a popular romantic ballad). It was about a prosthetics store owner in Maddrid in the 50s . He loves to screw around and attend wild parties at the local bordello.
He bears a physical resemblance to Generalisimo Francisco Franco. The Franco Secret Service is conducting surveillance on him early in the movie and then they pounce and kidnap him. They do sort of a reverse Queer Eye for the Straight Guy remake of him. Turn him into a completely convincing body double for Franco, who has totally lost interest in the pompous day to day diplomatic ceremonies and appearances at public works inaugurals. He also appears on the Spanish Movie Theater newsreels that always include a segment fawning over El Caudillo. In these newsreels, he always makes a secret gesture to his wife (tugs on his earlobe) who misses him and follows him in the newsreels. The woman who plays the wife is the same woman who plays the Mother In Law in Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown.
The body double begins to resent the conditions of his captivity (no wild parties at the local bordello anymore) and to make mischief with his ability to fool even his kidnapper handlers when he is wearing one of Franco’s uniforms or suits. Anyway, if only one of the Castro brothers holds public office, the other one could stand in and be his body double.
Are we sure we’re ready for twins to be President?
We’d never know who exactly we elected, or who is in the Oval Office signing things…
Beto isn’t running for Senate, he has seen all of TX, he wants to see the USA now, he is running for President.