President Barack Obama, in a reshuffling of his Cabinet in his second term, has tapped Julian Castro, the Mayor of San Antonio, Texas Friday to be the next housing secretary of the U.S.
This gives a prominent national platform to a celebrated rising star in the Democratic Party. Obama, who was joined by Joseph Biden the Vice President and Castro also announced the nomination of Shaun Donovan, the current Secretary of Housing and Urban Development to be in charge of the budget office of the White House.
That is an opening the President created after asking his former head of the budget office last month to become the head of the Department of Health and Human Services.
Castro who is just 39 was pushed in 2012 into the national political spotlight when he was chosen by Obama to deliver one of the keynote addresses during the Democratic National Convention.
The address was a political baptism not unlike that of the president’s, when he made his own rise to prominence after giving a keynote address during the Democratic convention of 2004.
The announcement on Friday gives yet another big boost to the Texan’s profile. He is being viewed by many Democrats as a possible candidate for vice president in the next national elections to be held in November of 2016.
Castro originally had a different map outlined for his political future. He planned to serve 4 terms of two-years each, which are all that are allowed under the law in San Antonio, then run in 2018 for the governor of Texas.
He even rebuffed an overture by Obama to consider the nomination for Secretary of Transportation in 2012. He tweeted at the time he wanted to be San Antonio through May of 2017 if the city’s voters wanted him, as he had zero interest moving to Washington.
