I'm quite glad that Castro is being reported as off the list. He has just about the worst possible gaffe for a campaign against someone like Trump:
"Joaquín and I got into Stanford because of affirmative action. I scored 1210 on my SATs"
You can bet that Trump would read that aloud for 3 months and call him Stupid Julian. It would be absolutely brutal.
Wait, he said this? In public? Clearly his affirmative action juju was a lot stronger than mine if he got into Stanford with
that score. And then he went to Harvard Law! I understood but never really shared the dislike so many have for this guy until now, not because he got a low score on some test but because he seems to be practically
bragging about it (apparently he was talking up affirmative action in the
Times). Affirmative action
should get your foot in the door, not carry you over the threshold when you're not qualified. Clearly Castro thinks everything should be handed to him on a silver platter without having to do anything-- college admissions, law school, a (virtually ceremonial) mayoral post, a cabinet post (
in which he's been far less proactive than his predecessor), and now the Vice Presidency. What a smug pr--k.
At the same time you almost have to admire it. Who would have thought it possible that one could
coast their way to being one heartbeat away from being President? Sure, you could stumble into it, like Agnew, but it almost takes a certain
talent to get yourself chosen as mayor of a top-ten city yet not have to do any work, monetise your prestigious sinecure
to the tune of six-figures through speeches, books, and a
seven-figure "referal fee", and then end up in Cabinet giving more speeches, reading reports, and following the recommendations of civil servants. The rest of us can only wish we could do so much by doing so little.
