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"\n\n Texas: always up to craziness. Just this week, Tea Partier Ted Cruz pulled out a big win in the Senate primary, and San Antonio mayor Juli\u00E1n Castro was tapped to keynote the Democratic National Convention. Knowing little about Texas other than not to mess with it, it seemed like a good idea to put some questions to an expert: Erica Grieder, Austin-based correspondent for The Economist, native San Antonian, and author of a forthcoming book on the state's politics.\n\nReid: Hi, Erica\u2014thanks for doing this.\n\nErica: Hi, Reid\u2014thanks for suggesting it.\n\nReid: Well, I know you've got TX politics dialed, and I...do not. So: Juli\u00E1n Castro. What do we, the uninitiated, need to know about him?\n\nErica: Considering that I'm the only person who still thinks Rick Perry isn't stupid, I appreciate the vote of confidence. So: Juli\u00E1n Castro is the mayor of San Antonio, Texas's second-largest city (after Houston). Since he took office, in 2009, he's been seen as a rising star for the Texas Democratic party, and he's gotten a lot of national attention as a result. He also has an identical twin brother, Joaquin, who is a state representative and is presumably going to go to Congress next year (running in a Democratic district in San Antonio to replace a retiring incumbent).\n\nReid: See, there you go. I would've said Dallas was second-largest. Texas! Anyway. So, the convention keynote is obviously a pretty high-expectations gig\u2014especially since 2004, when Obama used it as a springboard to national stardom. From what you've seen of Castro, do you think he's up to it?\n\nErica: You know, it is a pretty next-level set of expectations. People in Texas have been talking about Castro for years but this week is the first time I've seen people on Facebook gushing about how they went to the same high school as the Castros and so on. I do think he's up for it. He's not really known for soaring oratory, although I suppose in Texas there's not much of a market for that anyway. But he's been an effective, forward-looking mayor, so they hype's not unwarranted.\n\nReid: Got it. How would you describe his politics? You've told me in the past that people tend to misunderstand what a Texas Democrat is.\n\nErica: Yeah...my new joke is that Texas Democrats are basically Rockefeller Republicans. The Castros' parents were both active in politics and community organizing, and so it was a pretty progressive household, I think. But Juli\u00C3\u00A1n, like his brother and like most Texas Democrats, is sort of a pragmatic, pro-business, Third-Way kind of Democrat, and tends to focus on things like economic development and education.\n\nReid: Not to be overly crass, but we know that winning over Latinos is a huge priority for the Obama reelect, and presumably that has something to do with why Castro was picked. He'll be speaking to a national audience, of course, but do you think Texas itself will be going blue anytime soon, even as the Latino population grows?\n\n Erica: Ugh. This whole \"Texas is turning blue because of all the Hispanics\" thing is so shallow. I mean, on the one hand, it is true that Hispanic voters in Texas tend to favor the Democratic party, as they do nationally, and if Texas's Latino population is surging, that will help the Democrats. The state is also getting younger, more urban, and more diverse (not just more Hispanic), so the demographics are definitely auspicious for Democrats. Texas Republicans are aware of that too\u2014or at least, the establishment Republicans have been\u2014which partly explains why they've been relatively moderate on issues related to immigration.\n\n At the same time, the politics are lagging the demographics. Texas Hispanics have a much lower voter registration rate, and turnout rate, than Anglos. They also haven't favored Democrats by such a huge margin as we see in these Obama-Romney polls. But more to the point, Texas isn't going to turn blue unless people have a reason to vote for the Democrats, and until recently, they haven't, because the Democrats struggle to find statewide candidates, haven't nailed down a message, and have this sort of chronic air of defeat.\n\n Reid: Wow.\n\n Erica: Most people assume that Castro himself will run for statewide office at some point.\n\n Reid: Also, as you pointed out to me, Ted Cruz, the newly victorious GOP nominee for Senate, is Hispanic and not at all a Democrat.\n\n Erica: Right. And Cruz's win should be a major wake-up call. Republicans have controlled Texas politics for a long time (they have won every statewide office since 1998), but in the past two years, the party has shifted in a rightward direction\u2014the Republicans have grown their majority in the Legislature, and a lot of the new reps tend towards the tea-party side of the party.\n\n Over the medium term, this shift could actually be a good thing for the Democrats. Nothing fails like success, right? The Republican Party has gotten so big that their coalition is starting to show some signs of tension. That is, the Texas electorate isn't really right-wing\u2014it's probably center-right. If the legislature tacks farther right next year, like if they try to cut the schools budget again, people might start to get upset. So the Hispanic vote is definitely becoming more and more important, but over the next few cycles, the important swing vote in Texas might be suburban parents, of every ethnicity.\n\n Of course, in positing the existence of a swing vote, I am assuming that Democrats are going to start competing more aggressively, which has, in recent years, sometimes been an unwarranted assumption. Am I allowed to use an emoticon here? If so: :-P\n\nReid: You are indeed. Thanks!\n\n Read more on Death Race 2012\n\nEmo Emails from Barack\n\nHunger Reads: Jared Diamond Would Like to Correct the Record, and Yes, Olympic Swimmers Do Pee in the Pool\n\nHmm, What Four-Letter Word Haven't We Heard in a While?\n\nThe Mittsplainer: An Alternate Theory of Mitt Romney's Gaffes\n\nFollow Reid Cherlin on Twitter for more updates from the campaign trail."^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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