If you talked to Mayor Julián Castro five years ago about a possible Cabinet appointment, he would have emphasized he had no interest in serving as the Housing and Urban Development secretary, the position once held by his role model, Henry Cisneros.

Castro viewed HUD as something of a crumb that presidents threw your way when they needed a minority to round out their administrations. He publicly offered a hint of this mind-set in 2012 when a Fusion TV reporter asked if he would turn down a HUD appointment from President Barack Obama, and Castro replied: “Yeah. I can't imagine what they would offer me.”

Less than two years after making that statement, Castro sat before the Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee Tuesday morning, to begin the confirmation process for a job he never wanted.

Before we look at what changed his mind, let's consider the notion that HUD is something of an executive-branch haven for tokenism.

If we go back 20 years and look at the six most recent HUD secretaries, we'll find two Latinos (Cisneros and Mel Martinez) and one African-American (Alphonso Jackson).

In fact, the first African-American Cabinet member in American history, Robert C. Weaver, was also the first HUD secretary. Weaver received the nod from then-President Lyndon Johnson shortly after Johnson created the department in 1965.

It's probably true that American presidents have viewed housing as an issue particularly sensitive to African-Americans and Latinos, and — either consciously or subconsciously — tried to use HUD to create the appearance of Cabinet diversity.

HUD also has been used as a way to bury a political competitor, as Richard Nixon did when he gave the job to 1968 GOP presidential hopeful George Romney (in much the same way that John Kennedy buried his former — and possible future — rival, Henry Cabot Lodge, by giving him the thankless gig of ambassador to Vietnam).

But it's not quite fair to say that HUD is where promising careers go off to die.

After serving at HUD, Jack Kemp won a spot on the GOP's 1996 national ticket. Martinez parlayed his HUD tenure into a successful U.S. Senate campaign in Florida, and Andrew Cuomo became governor of New York nearly a decade after leaving HUD.

In any event, the debate over whether HUD is sufficiently high-profile for a perceived Democratic rising star such as Castro seems to miss the point.

Castro didn't need this Cabinet position to give him prominence. Given his 2012 keynote address at the Democratic National Convention and his various speaking engagements around the country since then, he's plenty prominent enough in Democratic circles.

He needed something to fatten his résumé, and this was his last, best hope to do it before the 2016 election cycle, when Democratic presidential front-runner Hillary Clinton will be scouting for potential running mates.

There are Castro allies who think the Transportation Department offer he turned down last year was a more plum option. He would have had a bigger budget ($80 billion vs. $45 billion), and smaller risk of failure (HUD, with its complex web of subsidies and regulations, has a history of scandal).

In 2013, however, with a mayoral election looming and implementation of his prized Pre-K 4 SA program only beginning, Castro was not yet ready to relinquish the mayor's office.

Castro escaped Tuesday's hearing unscathed, with Sen. Pat Toomey, R-Pa., the only committee member to take even a mildly combative tone. Toomey asked Castro for his position on cities using eminent domain “as an argument to justify confiscating mortgages from lenders at a discount,” a practice Toomey considers unconstitutional.

Castro ducked Toomey's persistent inquiries by saying he wants to have more dialogue on the issue, which prompted Toomey to say, “So I see I'm not going to get an answer to my question.”

All in all, Castro showed himself to be a master of responding without saying much — of being agreeable without necessarily agreeing.

He should fit in smoothly in D.C.

ggarcia@express-news.net