Mayoral runoff in Texas signals new generation

SAN ANTONIO — In 1975, Rosie Castro took her baby twins, Julian and Joaquin, to a farmworkers' rally. They slept in strollers while she handed out union fliers.

The boys have grown up to become two of the more recognizable faces in San Antonio. Julian is a member of the City Council, Joaquin is a state legislator, and both are seen as modern-day successors to Chicano leaders like their mother, as comfortable in a boardroom as a barrio.

They are just 30 years old. Nevertheless, Julian Castro is the leading candidate for mayor, after a May 7 vote put him in a June runoff election against a 70-year-old opponent.

The runoff election is expected to hinge on whether voters see him as a political wunderkind or an upstart who needs more seasoning before taking the helm of the nation's eighth-largest city.

The man who finished second on May 7, Phil Hardberger, is a former judge who had worked as a newspaper copy boy, earned three college degrees, served in the Peace Corps and flown planes in the Air Force before Julian Castro was born.

Some say a mayoral victory for Castro would be part of an important chapter for Latinos. Henry Cisneros, a former San Antonio mayor who served as federal housing secretary under President Clinton, has pointed out that Latino mayors could soon be elected in two major cities: Castro, and Antonio Villaraigosa in Los Angeles today.

A Castro victory would fuel descriptions of the twins that already border on breathless. In some quarters, their potential is compared to that of Sen. Barack Obama, the black Illinois Democrat whose skin color is seen as having shaped, but not defined, his public persona.

Raised by a single mother, the twins finished high school in three years, received scholarships to Stanford University, gained encyclopedic knowledge of public policy and urban development, went to Harvard Law School, then came home and got hired by a powerful law firm. They were soon elected to public office.

"When I was in college, in the early 1970s, you were either with the system or against the system," said Luis Fraga, a Stanford associate professor of political science who taught the twins and mentored them while they were writing senior theses on economic development in San Antonio.

"Julian is an example of young people who understand that that kind of dichotomy was false, that the deeper challenge is simultaneously serving the interests of both: communities that traditionally benefit from policy and those that don't," Fraga said.

The final stretch of the San Antonio campaign, however, will not be easy for Castro.

He is running to replace Ed Garza, who has served two two-year terms and must leave office because of one of the nation's most restrictive term-limits laws.

Garza is a close political ally — a little too close, many believe. His tenure has been marred by corruption and criticized as ineffectual despite some successes, such as landing a Toyota plant in the historically poor city. Garza, 36, rose to office as another fresh-faced Latino, and there have been persistent murmurs that City Hall is ready for a grown-up.

Castro has laughed off questions about his age, reminding voters at forums that he is, after all, old enough to drive. But youth is hardly his only problem.

After he opposed and helped to kill a 2,600-acre resort and housing development, he was painted — unfairly, he says — as a knee-jerk opponent of growth.

And in April, he handed in a campaign-finance report that was riddled with errors. His opponents pounced, charging that he was unfit to lead a city with 12,000 municipal employees and a $1.4 billion annual budget.

Then there is the curious incident that some have called Twinsgate.

In April, more than 200,000 people lined the famous River Walk for a parade. Julian Castro was scheduled to ride on a City Council barge, but at the last minute decided to go to a neighborhood forum, he said. His brother, an identical twin, was on the barge. While Joaquin waved to the crowd, the public announcer told the crowd it was Julian.

Julian Castro called it an innocent mix-up. And the two brothers displayed T-shirts reading "I Am Julian" and "I Am NOT Julian" and appeared on national talk shows.

"No one was sure how it would play," Cisneros said. "But they were able to effectively deflect it by making it humorous. People ended up enjoying it as opposed to getting angry about it."

Not everyone.

An Internet message board established by the San Antonio Express-News in response to the incident has been flooded with comments. Many residents accused Castro's opponents of seizing on trivia. Others were less charitable. One said the incident made him realize that he had "socks older than Castro."

"I'm very troubled by it," said Councilman Carroll Schubert, 57, who placed third in the May 7 race, trailing Castro and Hardberger. "The people I've talked to did not find it funny."

Despite the hullabaloo, the most serious threat to Castro's campaign might be a measure on the same ballot that would freeze property taxes for homeowners 65 and older. An unusually large turnout of seniors who might be inclined to vote for an older candidate could spell trouble for Castro, said Larry Hufford, a political-science professor at St. Mary's University in San Antonio.

Castro will have a tough time winning the election, Hufford said. Both candidates are Democrats, and Hardberger would have stronger appeal among seniors and white conservatives who had backed Schubert, a Republican, in the first round of voting, Hufford said.

Amid the bustle of his campaign office, Castro sat at his desk, his hands folded before him, his hair carefully parted, his button-down shirt starched and his auburn tie perfectly dimpled.

His opposition has focused on essential programs such as flood and traffic control, but Castro has tried to make the race a referendum on the city itself. Castro wants to turn San Antonio, which maintains the feel of a small town and can be a parochial place, into an important metropolis while retaining its colorful identity — no small task, he says, in an age of gated suburbs and strip malls.

"That is what is at stake," he said. "You have to have some substance behind you. You can't be a cream-puff politician."