It’s a nondescript, boxy office building amid the commercial clutter of Henderson Boulevard in South Tampa. Up on the fourth floor is a sparse complex of small rooms with the generic ambience of ad hoc office rental. Welcome to the latest–and 100th–Florida campaign office of the Obama campaign.
One of the rooms, however, was packed with audibly enthusiastic volunteers. They were being addressed–OK, “fired up”–by some notable cheerleaders, including Mayor Bob Buckhorn and U.S. Rep. Kathy Castor. Plus one out-of-state, political celebrity: youthful-looking San Antonio Mayor Julian Castro, 38, of recent Democratic National Convention keynote fame.
Castro again referenced his grandson-of-a-housemaid, Pell Grants-through-Stanford University-and-Harvard Law back story. But his mission was to gin up campaign workers to push early voting in the ultimate swing state. Florida, he underscored, was “one of just a handful of states that are going to speak with a powerful voice for the nation.” He was also in the region to personify and rev up Hispanic support for the president. With good reason: More than a quarter of eligible voters in Florida are Latino. But, no, he wasn’t going to take the Castro name to South Florida to make the case among Cuban-exile Hispanics.
As for Texas, Castro said he could see his home state going blue within “six to eight years.” The key factors, he noted, were the rapidly increasing percentage of Hispanic voters, the relatively “moderate” politics of today’s move-ins, and inevitable fall-out from right-wing overreach.
And speaking of ever-changing demographic patterns, might we one day see a Castro-Rubio presidential contest?
“Maybe Rubio, likely not me,” said Castro with an impish grin.