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"FacebookPinterest\n\nCastro was neither flustered nor flattered by the president\u2019s bantering familiarity. Of course Obama knew who he was\u2014gate-crashers might make it into White House social events, but they don\u2019t get to the table of high-level West Wing policy meetings led by the president himself. Castro smiled politely at Obama\u2019s jest and then proceeded to the business at hand, delivering prepared remarks about employment and the energy market in San Antonio. He is cerebral, serious, self-contained and highly efficient. If he were an energy source, he\u2019d be zero-emission. A video of the event shows the president listening intently to Castro\u2019s presentation and nodding occasionally, Harvard Law \u201991 silently encouraging Harvard Law \u201900.\nA few days before the meeting, Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood visited San Antonio and told the mayor that he was &amp;quot;on the radar in Washington.&amp;quot; The morning of the meeting, Castro was included in a small working breakfast hosted by Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner; Valerie Jarrett, one of the president\u2019s closest advisers, was there, too. Castro was being noticed and auditioned. It had been about a dozen years since another brilliant young man from San Antonio, Henry Cisneros, regarded by many as the emerging national leader of the Hispanic wing of the Democratic Party, lost his political future in a sex-and-money scandal. Cisneros\u2019s implosion left an opening. For a while, Bill Richardson, the governor of New Mexico, and Antonio Villaraigosa, the mayor of Los Angeles, were Great Hispanic Hopes, but scandals eventually knocked them out of contention too.\n\nWhatever helps you sleep at night Lies the Parties are Telling Themselves, Alexander Burns and Maggie Haberman, Politico\n\nIt\u2019s one of the most reliable cliches of the 2012 campaign: no president since Franklin Roosevelt has been reelected with unemployment over 7.2 percent. As Obama campaigns with the jobless rate over 8 percent, Republicans have pointed to that figure as proof that the Democrat is all but disqualified.\nThere\u2019s no question that the economy is the biggest anchor on Obama\u2019s campaign. But the historical data is also a bit facile. There have been three presidents since Roosevelt who campaigned for reelection with an economy this weak: Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter and George H. W. Bush.They all lost, but they also all faced substantial problems on top of the economy: Ford was campaigning in the shadow of Watergate (and very nearly won.) Carter had the Iranian hostage crisis. Bush faced a destabilizing third-party challenge from Ross Perot.&amp;gt;\n\n What\u2019s more, presidents have won reelection under challenging circumstances. Harry Truman is the most famous one, barely capturing a second term in a bad economy by campaigning against an intransigent Congress. But Richard Nixon also coasted to reelection despite the grim state of the war in Vietnam and George W. Bush overcame concerns about Iraq to defeat his opponent.\n\n[Read more on Death Race 2012:\n\n](http://www.gq.com/news-politics/blogs/death-race)\n\n[Bozo In Paradise: Dissecting David Brooks\u2019 Dumbitry -- Volume 1\n\n](http://www.gq.com/news-politics/blogs/death-race#ixzz22Dbb7Yzf)\n\n[Today\u2019s Political Firestorm: Romney, In Middle East, Says Crazy, Polarizing Things About Palestine\n\n](http://www.gq.com/news-politics/blogs/death-race#ixzz22Dbgg01z)\n\n99 Days to Go\n\nMummy on Mittens\n\nFollow GQPolitics on Twitter for more updates from the campaign trail."^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.gq.com/story/hunger-reads-the-mexican-american-obama-and-lies-the-campaigns-tell-themselves>