Schumer Strikes Out Again: Joaquin Castro Won’t Challenge Sen. Cornyn in 2020
Can you really blame the younger class from running far, far from what will be a ridiculous electoral loss?
It’s been a rough week for Sen. Schumer, whose recruiting for the next Senate class isn’t going so well.
Wednesday, Rep. Joaquin Castro confirmed he will bow out of an electoral contest with incumbent Sen. Cornyn.
From the San Antonio Express-News:
U.S. Rep. Joaquin Castro has decided not to seek the Democratic nomination to challenge Sen. John Cornyn, choosing instead to continue pursuing a fast-rising career in Congress focusing on security and border issues.
Castro’s decision could pave the way for a contest in 2020 between Cornyn and Mary Jennings “MJ” Hegar, an Afghanistan war veteran who ran a strong but losing race for Congress last year and who declared her candidacy last week.
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.
Castro’s official announcement came about strangely:
Bizarre: @JoaquinCastrotx tipped his hand inadvertently during a call that @JohnCornyn was holding with Texas reporters.
One reporter didn't mute his line when Castro called to discuss his decision.
Castro could be overheard saying, "I'm gonna pass."— Todd J. Gillman (@toddgillman) May 1, 2019
.@JoaquinCastrotx is passing on a run for the Senate again, the second time in two cycles. But how it was inadvertently revealed is just bonkers, via @tombenning https://t.co/HHCmNcDynZ pic.twitter.com/2yt7shQRax
— Zach Montellaro (@ZachMontellaro) May 1, 2019
If ever there was time to run, it’s now. Beto’s run planted seeds of a possible blue Senate win and plowed the electoral ground, now ripe for the harvest.
Earlier this week, Stacey Abrams, the sore loser in Georgia’s gubernatorial race, declined to run for Senate, saying she will “continue to watch how the national conversation around the presidency unfolds” and she has not taken herself “out of that conversation” of a possible presidential run.
Democrats will be hard-pressed to mount any serious challenge to take back the Senate without candidates willing to run. The new crop of candidates though seems more interested in being candidate 2,498 in the Democrat presidential primary rather than running for a race they stand some chance of winning.
Splinter, part of the Jezebel, AV Club conglom, lamented that “The Democrats Are Just Giving Up on the Senate,” and they’re not wrong. Though then digress into such thoughtful discourse as “the Senate sucks,” “it’s an archaic institution in desperate need of radical reform if not outright abolition.”
But anyway, back to Schumer’s troubles:
It’s not just Texas either. Two-term Montana Gov. Steve Bullock is reportedly set to announce a run for president that will not work, in a year where Republican Sen. Steve Daines is up for re-election. Stacey Abrams decided not to take on David Perdue in Georgia. John Hickenlooper passed on a chance to face the most vulnerable GOP senator, Cory Gardner, in favor of polling 1 percent in presidential polls and telling national audiences about the time he watched porn with his mom. And at this point, it looks like North Carolina Sen. Thom Tillis’ biggest challenge next year might be in the Republican primary rather than the general election, where the DSCC still hasn’t found a Democrat willing to run. (Currently, the most high-profile candidate is three-term state Sen. Erica Smith-Ingram.)
Unless all of these people running for president rather than Senate seats they can actually win have a collective realization that their efforts might be better spent elsewhere—and soon—the Democrats are essentially set to cede control of the Senate to Mitch McConnell until 2022, no matter what happens at the top of the ticket. That is a fucking disaster.
Disaster for Democrats, but I am here for it.
But when your party stake’s its future on tax returns and myths of collusion and parades an old wild-haired socialist and a gaffe machine with no concept of personal space as your front-runners, can you really blame the younger class from running far, far from what will be a ridiculous electoral loss? May as well spend that time hanging out on the sidelines, building fundraising infrastructures, donor lists, and waiting for the storm to pass.
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Comments
I believe that the 17th Amendment was one of the worst things to happen to our republic. After yesterday’s Senate hearings, I cannot imagine some of those Democrats being there if they had to be appointed by their state.
One thing about Abrams and Castro not running for office, they could be setting themselves up to be the designated diversity vice-president candidate for white bread Biden.
That’s just ridiculous. There’s not one of them that would not have been elected by their state legislature. After all, the state legislature was elected by the same people who elected the senator.
Besides, repealing the 17th would just turn state legislative elections into senate elections. Just as we vote for presidential electors without knowing their names let alone anything about them, merely because they have pledged to vote for our preferred presidential candidate, the same would happen to state legislative elections. Candidates would pledge in advance to vote for this or that senatorial candidate, and people would vote for them on that basis alone, not caring what else they would do during their term.
Running for President can make a person a millionaire. That is a powerful attractant.
How? Book contracts and speaking fees afterwards? Surely very few ex-candidates get those.
Many of them do unusually well trading in the stock market where they enjoy access to information that normal citizens don’t have, and they consider themselves immune from insider trading rules.
I’m referring to the Congress critters
It is entirely possible that these people see a Trump blowout in the Top of the Ticket race and expect to see that flow down stream to the next level races.
I’m not sure about everywhere else as I go about town I always ask if the merchandise I’m about to buy is free since Bernie said…..and darn it I still have to pay every time. Lucky for me most Texans have a sense of humor. Not enough to elect Poncho Beto though. Thank God!
It isn’t likely that any Democrat is going to threaten Cornyn. He doesn’t have the Trump baggage that hurt Cruz.
He needs four more years to work on his Spanish.