Former San Antonio Mayor Julian Castro today takes what has become a necessary step for relatively unknown politicians with Presidential aspirations, News Radio 1200 WOAI reports.
The former HUD Secretary today releases his memoir, "An Unlikely Journey," which he has been writing since the end of the Obama Administration in early 2017.
Cal Jillson, a political analyst at SMU, tells News Radio 1200 WOAI Castro is following in the footsteps of candidates like Barack Obama, by releasing a book, and then going on a national tour to ostensibly sell the book, but mainly to get in front of the electorate.
"Those books tend to be a mix of biography and policy," Jillson says. "What a potential candidate would stand for if they did run for President, what life lessons they have learned."
Subtitled 'Waking up from my American Dream,' the book is touted as a "a candid and compelling memoir about race and poverty in America."
"In many ways," the book summary states, "there was no reason Julian Castro would have been expected to be a success. Born to unmarried parents in a poverty-stricken neighborhood of a struggling city, his prospects of escaping his circumstance seemed bleak."
Castro's book is compared with 'Dreams of My Father,' the memoir written by then little known Illinois Senator Barack Obama which helped launch his successful Presidential run in 2008.
The book touts his mother Rosie Castro for the success of Julian and his brother, Congressman Joaquin Castro, painting her as 'providing the launch pad for what would become an astonishing ascent.'
Jillson says this is critical for a book from a person who has high political aspirations.
"What life lessons they would learn from their youth that would make them a good President."
Jillson says, with a crowded field of Democrats expected to jump into the race, Castro will need a 'compelling story' to cut through the clutter.
"The Democrats are going to have an extraordinarily broad field," he said. "The trick is not getting in, it is distinguishing yourself within that broad field."
The book is being published simultaneously n English and in Spanish.
Castro has repeatedly said he will wait until after the midterm elections before making an announcement on a potential 2020 Presidential bid.
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