Demo­c­ra­t­ic Nation­al Con­ven­tion orga­niz­ers have announced that San Anto­nio May­or Julian Cas­tro will be the keynote speak­er open­ing night of the 2012 Con­ven­tion in Char­lotte (Tues­day, Sep­tem­ber 4th). The announce­ment came as the Tea Par­ty’s Ted Cruz beat estab­lish­ment favorite Lt. Gov­er­nor David Dewherst for the Repub­li­can U.S. Sen­ate nom­i­na­tion in Texas.

The tim­ing of each piece of news may have been a coin­ci­dence, but it shows that His­pan­ic can­di­dates and elect­ed lead­ers are increas­ing­ly in the spotlight.

Cas­tro is one of the Texas Demo­c­ra­t­ic Par­ty’s ris­ing stars. Thanks to Barack Oba­ma’s team, he will have cen­ter stage in Char­lotte. The thir­ty-sev­en year old His­pan­ic may­or pre­vi­ous­ly wowed the crowd at the Texas Demo­c­ra­t­ic Con­ven­tion, where he was intro­duced by his twin broth­er, Joaquin. Both are Stan­ford and Har­vard Law grad­u­ates, raised by a sin­gle mom who hap­pens to be a spir­it­ed activist.

Texas Democ­rats are ecsta­t­ic. “I had to put on heavy shoes this morn­ing to keep from fly­ing”, wrote a blog­ger friend. I share her excite­ment, hav­ing lived in Texas for five years before relo­cat­ing to Wash­ing­ton. I can’t wait to hear Cas­tro’s address, which will fol­low First Lady Michelle Oba­ma’s. I have no doubt it will be as impor­tant as that of a cer­tain Sen­a­tor’s from Illi­nois in 2004.

One day, this bright young may­or from Texas may be a suc­cess­ful and pop­u­lar gov­er­nor. Per­haps, as sev­er­al Texas gov­er­nors before him, he’ll run for President.

Of course, I’m get­ting ahead of myself, but it’s nice to dream.

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