Twin Theory: Why I think Julián encouraged Joaquin to run for Senate and Joaquin declined

Hello Texas:

So Joaquin Castro has gone and done it. He has decided not to run for the U.S. Senate against John Cornyn after all.

His exit, or more accurately his decision not to enter the race, was inglorious, coming after weeks of dithering and delay. But I would like to offer my own more empathetic theory on what happened here, a sweeter tale of the mutually supportive relationship of twin brothers, each looking out for the other, playing itself out in public.

I emphasize that this is a theory built on a few bits of evidence and my own intuition. I have absolutely no inside access or information. Just what makes sense to me. And that is that, all along, it has been Julián Castro, a minute older and ever since the senior twin, who has been encouraging Joaquin to run, and Joaquin who has been resisting a race.

I think Julián was encouraging his brother to run for the Senate, not out of any self-interest.  A presidential candidate — who was depending on his brother, in between being an increasingly significant member of Congress vis-à-vis Trump, to manage his campaign and be the ultimate campaign surrogate, and who would, were he to run for Senate, be calling the same donors for scarce campaign dollars — it seems that it was manifestly not in his self-interest to have his brother run for Senate.

Rather, I think, as a good brother, he felt an obligation not to stand in the way of Joaquin's opportunity to be elected to the Senate — a far more likely prospect than his own presidential candidacy. His encouragement was a way of giving Joaquin permission to go for it and not abide by the usual Castro code of each brother alternately putting his ambitions on hold to help the other. It was a selfless act by Julián and, in this reading, Joaquin's dithering was all about not wanting to appear ungrateful, and not wanting to let down his brother and other supporters by not running, even though he may never have really wanted to run.

My evidence, such as it is, begins with a story I wrote on Nov. 17, 2018, before Julián formally announced his candidacy for president, and before Beto O'Rourke decided whether he was going to run for president, though he had already made it pretty clear he didn't want to run again for Senate in 2020.

By the time O’Rourke decides whether to run for president, another Texas Democrat, Julián Castro, might have already thrown his hat in the ring.

 “Me and two dozen other Democrats,” Castro said Tuesday night after an award ceremony honoring Hillary Clinton at UT’s LBJ School of Public Affairs.

 Castro, the former mayor of San Antonio and secretary of Housing and Urban Development in the Obama administration, said the midterm results augured well for Democratic chances in 2020.

 “We’re going to be competitive in the states that were problematic (in 2016), and we have, developing, a real chance of winning the 11 electoral votes in Arizona, and then maybe even the 38 electoral votes in Texas, with the right candidate of course,” Castro told the Statesman. He said that means both the right candidate for president and for Senate.

 “I think you’ll have that,” Castro said. “We’ll see what Beto’s going to do. He’s obviously supertalented. I’m sure he’ll make his decision about his future. I’m sure he’ll do well in whatever he pursues, but Joaquín and I are going to make decisions about our future in fairly short order.”

The implication there seemed pretty clear. Joaquin was considering running for the Senate and while that seemed counterintuitive, it did occur to me that the Castro twins simultaneously running for president and the U.S. Senate would forever banish all that talk of the Castros being way too cautious and would be catnip for the kind of national press and cash that both could use.

But then, nothing happened.

On Jan. 12, Julián announced for president.

But not much buzz about Joaquin for Senate.

So, at the end of February, Julián stirred the pot again.

From a February 28, 2019 story by Michelle Price and Paul Weber:

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.

The next day, Matthew Jones, Joaquin's political advisor, issued a statement:

Congressman Castro will seriously consider running for Senate in 2020.

 Right now, he's focused on protecting Texans – and all Americans – from the most consequential challenge to our constitutional separation of powers that we have seen in a generation.

 He will not stand by while the President attempts to unilaterally strip Texans of their land to build a wall in a manner that most Americans, especially Texans, disagree with.

In the weeks that followed, the mounting wisdom was that Joaquin was going to run.

On March 15, Carlos Sanchez reported in Texas Monthly:

Joaquin Castro, the Democratic congressman from San Antonio, is “all but certain” to enter next year’s race for U.S. Senate and take on incumbent Republican John Cornyn, a source familiar with Castro’s thinking said Thursday.

"We'll be making an announcement in the very near future," Jones said.

A couple of weeks alter that I interviewed Julián about reparations and about whether Texas would be a presidential battleground state in 2020.

At the end of the interview, Julián said, "And I'm sure you have been in touch with my brother. He's got a big decision to make."

We agreed that twins simultaneously running for president and Senate would be without precedent.

"You haven't seen anything like that before," he said.

Since then, it's been a waiting game, punctuated by MJ. Hegar's announcement last week that she was going to run for Cornyn's seat.

In a story in Monday's Statesman, Maria Recio brought the story up to date, foreshadowing Castro's decision to pass on the race.

WASHINGTON — Joaquin Castro — will he or won’t he?

 Just weeks after it appeared all but certain that Castro, a Democratic congressman from San Antonio, would challenge U.S. Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, in 2020, many backers now believe he won’t. Castro is being dismissed as an also-ran by some friends, supporters, donors and parts of the Democratic establishment.

 “I would say at this point, he’s not going to run,” said Mark Jones, a political science professor at Rice University.

 One Democratic operative who spoke on condition of anonymity put the odds at 50-50 but added, “If somebody bet me $50 he’s running, I wouldn’t take it.”

 Castro, who still has his admirers, has promised supporters he will announce his decision by the first week of May.

 But to many observers, the signs are clear that he is already out of the running — and a lot of it has to do with Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y.

 Castro was eclipsed Tuesday by MJ Hegar, a decorated war veteran whom Schumer sought out after she proved to be formidable at both fundraising and social media in her 2018 razor-thin loss to U.S. Rep. John Carter, R-Round Rock. She announced her run against Cornyn last week with a splashy video.

 Since January, Castro had told allies that he was running but dithered about making it official. After Hegar’s announcement, Castro issued a statement that praised her entry in the race and suggested his interest in running by saying, “The era of uncontested primaries in Texas is over.” But he stopped short of committing.

 Schumer, who sources said had been frustrated by Castro’s indecisiveness, has taken an outsized interest in defeating Cornyn, the former majority whip. Earlier this year, Schumer tried to recruit Beto O’Rourke, who nearly defeated U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, in 2018.

 When O’Rourke made it clear he was running for president, Schumer interviewed Castro and then summoned Hegar to Washington.

 Hegar was bolstered by polling done by the Senate Democratic Campaign Committee and Emily’s List, a PAC that supports female pro-choice candidates, that showed her with a wide lead over Castro, according to three sources who had been briefed on the private polling.

 Schumer’s stance does not prevent Castro from running, although the leader has made clear that Hegar is his preference, say Democratic sources who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue.

 “I don’t think Schumer was ever for Castro,” one Democratic operative who has spoken privately with the Senate leader told the American-Statesman. “He felt it was a mistake for both Castro brothers to run. Schumer never did think that (Joaquin) Castro was the right choice.”

 Joaquin Castro is the chairman of the presidential campaign of his identical twin, Julian Castro, a former San Antonio mayor and former Obama administration Cabinet member. One of Schumer’s concerns, according to one source who has spoke with the Democratic leader, was that having the brothers running at the same time for offices that require a lot of cash would hurt fundraising for both of them.

 Asked if he thought Joaquin Castro would run, former U.S. Rep. Charlie Gonzalez, D-San Antonio, whom Castro succeeded in Congress in 2013, said, “I think what will drive a lot of it is the effort to elect the brother for president. It will not be a secondary consideration for Joaquin given the relationship between the brothers.”

 Julian Castro raised $1.1 million in the first quarter, according to federal records, putting him near the bottom of presidential aspirants. Meanwhile, Joaquin Castro reported only $87,500 cash on hand in the first quarter.

 “A lot of us wish he would decide,” said Matt Angle, director of the Lone Star Project, a Democratic PAC. He added that many Texas Democrats were “scratching their heads” at the delay.

 “This is a cold-blooded business. In Texas, it’s a $50 million proposition to run for U.S. Senate,” he said

 Donors are already deciding. Aimee Cunningham, an Austin philanthropist and Democratic contributor, told the American-Statesman that she has been a longtime Castro supporter but supported Hegar, as well, in 2018, and urged the military vet to run for office again.

 “I told Joaquin that if MJ ran for Senate, I would have to enthusiastically support her,” Cunningham said.

 Latino lawmakers who want a Hispanic candidate near the top of the ballot in Texas, in a presidential year with anticipated high turnout, are particularly upset by Castro’s delay.

 “Incredibly indecisive, and you can use that,” said U.S. Rep. Filemon Vela, D-Brownsville, by text, adding that he was “exasperated” with Castro.

 Brandon Rottinghaus, professor of political science at the University of Houston, said, “The line between caution and indecisiveness can be hammered pretty thin, and it is pretty much see-through at this point for Castro.”

It was not a good look for Castro, playing straight to to the rap against him, but again, I would suggest viewing the way it played out through a poignant twin prism.

But one with a frankly unbelievable comic denouement.

As Abby Livingston and Patrick Svitek reported on Castro's decision Wednesday in the Texas Tribune.

 The San Antonio Express-News was the first to report the news Wednesday.

 But Castro's decision first came to light earlier in the day, when he told a reporter that he's "gonna pass" on the race to unseat Cornyn. That conversation with Castro was overheard by other media outlets on Cornyn's weekly conference call with the Texas media. The reporter apparently had not muted his line on the Cornyn call and was talking with Castro on a different line.

 Castro told the reporter that their conversation was "off the record," which refers to an agreement between a reporter and a source to not publish what the source says. But other journalists who heard the conversation are not bound by any such agreement.

Yes, ladies and gentleman, Joaquin Castro, after months of indecision, announced his decision not to run against Cornyn off the record via two different speaker phones, live to Cornyn and Texas reporters, even as Cornyn was being asked and answering a question by Maria Recio about what Cornyn thought about the likelihood that Castro was not going to be running against him.

Let us call the cascade of sound it produced, which I was listening to on my own well-muted speaker phone, as Requiem for a Castro Candidacy: A Fugue for Three Speaker Phones.

But before I take you through it, line by line, watch this, imagining the players as members of the Texas press corps.

OK. So, to set the scene. I am one of probably about 10 reporters on what are regular calls, usually every week, with Cornyn.

This Wednesday's agenda, per his office, included " three new bills he’s sponsoring: one to address the growing humanitarian and security crisis on the border, another to help stop sexual abuse on college campuses, and one to create a Smithsonian in Washington dedicated to the history of the American Latino."

The characters are Cornyn, Maria Recio, Bill Lambrecht, from the Hearst Washington bureau, who  was not identified and whom I do not know well enough to recognize his voice, and Joaquin Castro,whose voice I know but did not recognize, perhaps because the sound quality, three speaker phones removed, is not that great.

Mind you, as it was unfolding, I had no idea what was going on, and I was only able to make out what follows retrospectively, knowing what had happened and after repeated listenings. The two conversations, one between Cornyn and Recio and the other between Castro and Lambrecht, are happening simultaneously, one on top of the other.

Cornyn is finishing up his discussion of the Latino museum.

Cornyn: ....  knowing and learning history  is really important to our ability to govern ourselves and I'm proud to play a part in making this a reality, to make this museum not only a monument (A phone begins ringing. This must be Castro calling Lambrecht, who apparently has not muted his phone, which is on speaker) but a learning laboratory so the stories of Texans like Juan Seguín can be told.

Lambrecht: Hi, it's Bill.

Castro: Bill, it's Joaquin. (it was only in probably the 25th listening that I heard him identifying himself.) 

Cornyn: Hopefully we will be able to get that done and I look forward to making that a reality.

Castro: (garbled here)  Off the record

Cornyn: Let me stop there and take some questions.

Recio: Yeah. Hi senator.

Castro: Don't quote on the record, but off the record,  I'm gonna pass. (On this quote I am guided by what the Texas Tribune, which may have had better sound quality, reported, because he could just as easily to me to be saying, Don't quote off the record but on the record, I'm gonna pass, which might also make more sense under the circumstances.)

Recio: (garbled) with someone on the line it sounds like. Hopefully you can hear me.

Cornyn: I can hear you, Maria.

Someone: I hear you.

Lambrecht: Tell me why.

Castro: I assume you have that story ready to go.

Lambrecht: Well, not totally.

Cornyn: Those of you who are listening, could you please put your phone on mute.

(Note the comic confusion. Castro is announcing he is not going to run against Cornyn and Cornyn is asking that Castro be muted so he can answer a question about whether Castro is running.)

Lambrecht: I had a (inaudible) on a story that said you were going to go but tell me, tell me what prompted this decision. getting all of the, all of the...

At this point I guess the Cornyn conference call overlords intervened and muted all the phones but Recio's. Lambrecht's conversation with Castro is no longer on the line.

Automated women's voice on conference call: You've been muted. To unmute yourself, press Pound 5.

Recio: I had had a story earlier this week about Joaquin Castro and there's a lot of speculation, a lot of people starting to think he will not be challenging you for the Senate, and I wanted to ask you what you'e hearing (or were until you muted Lambrecht's phone) or what your feeling is about possibly only having the challenger, the announced challenger that we know of, MJ Hegar, and if you  think that that actually helps you to focus your arguments and make your case why you should stay.

Cornyn: Well, I expected that Iwould have serious opposition in 2020. I think it's a mistake to assume otherwise and I don't know who that individual is going to be and whether Sen. Schumer, by selecting Ms. Hegar, will be able to clear the field or whether they will end up having a primary. Joaquin Castro's been making a lot of comments about the race and acting like he's on the verge of making an announcement, but maybe on second thought he's decided to stand down and just accede to Mr. Schumer's hand-selected candidate, which is MJ Hegar.

From Lambrecht's story:

 Castro, 44, of San Antonio, announced his decision to stay out of the race in an interview with Hearst Newspapers.

 “Right now, I’m going to focus on my work in the House of Representatives. I’ve been doing what I feel is important and meaningful work here,” he said. “If and when I run for another office, it is likely to be something that takes me back home to Texas.”

Castro is the twin brother of Julián Castro, a former San Antonio mayor and Housing and Urban Development secretary who is running for the Democrats’ 2020 presidential nomination. The identical twins act as chief political strategist to one another, and Joaquin has the title of chairman in his brother’s quest.

 His brother’s presidential campaign could have been helpful to Castro, creating excitement among Latino voters and national attention to the unprecedented effort of twins seeking high office.

 But Joaquin Castro’s race also might have produced the uncomfortable scenario of extraordinarily close brothers parting ways on issues.

 Joaquin Castro also had a ringside seat to his brother’s struggles to raise money, reporting a modest $1.1 million in receipts in the first three months of 2019. Thus far, Joaquin Castro has paid little attention to his own fundraising, bringing in just $36,000 in the first quarter, his Federal Election Commission report shows.