Via the LAT: In Florida, Obama proposes a new approach to Cuba
Sen. Barack Obama plunged boldly into these uncharted political waters Friday when he called for “direct diplomacy, with friend and foe alike” in a speech to the Cuban American National Foundation, a group that has become more moderate in recent years but remains a bastion of anti-Castro sentiment. Obama said he would “turn the page” on half a century of policy isolating Cuba.
This is risky, given that Obama is currently not polling all that well in Florida, although it may not be as risky as it appears. While there is still a Castro in power in Cuba, his name isn’t Fidel and I think that fact takes some of the edge off of the anger towards the regime. Further, age is a factor: not only is Raúl an old man, but so, too, are the most vociferous in the Cuban exile population. Indeed, to put it bluntly, the Castro brothers have outlived many of their most hardcore opposition in Florida.
Even leaders of the anti-Castro movement in Florida recognize that change is coming and that change, the US is going to have to create new policies:
Despite the tepid response to Obama’s pledge to meet Cuban leaders “without preconditions,” a growing number of political strategists say that younger Cuban Americans and more recent arrivals have tired of the diplomatic deadlock.
That evolution has affected some in the older generation, as well. Foundation President Francisco “Pepe” Hernandez, once a staunch advocate of the diplomatic deep freeze, said a new approach was in order.
“The architects of future change in Cuba are not going to be those in power at the present time around Raul Castro, but people on the island are confronting a desperate situation,” Hernandez said. “To at least make an effort to engage the Cuban government is better than simply crossing our arms and waiting for things to change in Cuba.”
Jorge Mursuli, the 47-year-old founder of the national Hispanic civic engagement group Democracia U.S.A., says now is “a moment in time” when the Cuban American community is receptive to a new message like Obama’s.
And really, at some point we have to admit that the policies of the last almost five-decades hasn’t worked and that the best way to liberalize Cuba and to make it a state friendly to the United States is engagement, not the continuation of the status quo.
Update: Greg Weeks comments on the story here.
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May 24th, 2008 at 3:24 pm
I’m not sure there’s really anything the United States can do to change things in Cuba, short of invasive regime change and our track record on that is not so hot.
Whether or not we trade with Cuba or allow travellers there - I don’t see that it would have a heavy impact on things one way or the other. The resorts and “nice places” are all the bosses there would allow visitors to see; and any money that they pumped into the Cuban economy would go into the pockets of said bosses, and wouldn’t help the commoners at all.
Cuba will have to change by its own hand and of its own will.
May 24th, 2008 at 7:17 pm
Lifting he embargo and other sanction would positively effect the economy–I have no doubt about that. Further, I think that such an influx of economic improvement would have a positive effect, over the long haul, on the governmental situation.
At a minimum: the policies of the US to date have not helped the situation in Cuba whatsoever.
May 24th, 2008 at 9:22 pm
Granted, current policy has not helped, and I am in fact in favor of lifting the embargo. I guess I’m just not sure that a change in our policy toward Cuba would necessarily lead to democratization, capitalism, and all the other things that most of those who advocate for the lifting of the embargo claim.
A number of other capitalist democracies do in fact trade with Cuba - I think we’re about the only ones who don’t these days - and it hasn’t made Cuba free.
I would like to see embargo lifted because I’m an avid SCUBA diver and I’m pretty sure that there’s good diving in Cuban waters. It would be nice to be able to legally go there.
I’m just unconvinced that our policy, whatever it is, will have any sweeping or immediate effect.
May 24th, 2008 at 9:26 pm
I don’t disagree–and it certainly wouldn’t be sweeping and immediate. I just think it would be a marked improvement over the status quo.
Indeed, I think that the embargo empowered Fidel, as he could say that whatever problems where present weren’t his fault, but rather than of the US. As such, not only haven’t our policy helped, they have been counterproductive.
May 25th, 2008 at 5:36 pm
Risky, but smart. Obama has little chance of rebuilding either the Clinton (1996) or the Gore-Lieberman Florida coalitions. He’s likely to lose the “southern” (i.e. Georgia/Alabama border) white votes that both Clinton and Gore won, and to get fewer of the Jewish votes that Lieberman brought out (even if too many of those got counted for Pat “WWII Was None of Our Business” Buchanan). However, if he can hold down the GOP share of the Cuban vote by appealing to a different kind of (and younger) Cuban-American voter, his turnout of African Americans can at least keep the state in play. My guess is Obama does not need Florida to win 270 electoral votes. But he needs to force McCain to defend it.
May 25th, 2008 at 6:08 pm
Georgia and Alabama are not question marks, they will be GOP states no matter who the democrat on the ballot is.
Florida is iffy.
I really think everyone is underestimating McCain’s centrist appeal.
Call me a heretic or an idiot for saying this, but I just don’t see why this election will pan out much differently than the last one. There are states that are red, there are states that are blue, and there are a handful of swing states that will decide things.
Why everyone is just assuming the democratic party will win is hard for me to really understand. The red states will stay red; the blue states blue. And it will be close in the swing states, because McCain is a centrist-leaning republican and Obama is seen largely as a left-wing democrat.
Bush’s unpopularity will not factor into this election, as hatred of him will not cause deeply red states to go blue, nor will irritation over the outcome of the democratic nomination cause blue states to go red.
If the electoral map looks much different this time than it did four years ago, it would blow my brain. We are a socially and politically polarized nation. If anything more so now than four years ago.
And our all-or-nothing electoral system pretty much gurantees that campaigning will really only happen in a handful of states.
I don’t even know if I ever saw a Bush or Kerry ad on TV in 2004. Georgia is a red state. They don’t waste their time here, and won’t in 2008.
It will come down to the same contestable states as last time: Ohio, Florida, Pennsylvania, a handful of others. And that’s all that’s going to matter for McCain, and (presumably) Obama. And it will be close in those states, and there will be disputes over who-counted-what and the usual griping about dead people voting and a vast conspiracy involving the Diebold corporation. There will be more recounts this year than there were in 2004. There will be more lawsuits.
And in the end, it will be close, because the presidency will be decided by a handful of states, not the majority of them, and hard campaigning in those places will do what it always does - make for a close race.
A lot of things could happen between now and November, and a lot of things will. It will get very ugly and unpleasant, and the electoral discourse will degenerate further this cycle, as it has the last several. Image, rumor, innuendo - these are the things that people will vote on.
Anyone who thinks they know right now how it will pan out either has a crystal ball that really works (and is worth billions) or is guessing.
There. I got that off my chest. I feel better now. I tire of hearing about the landslide that is coming.
America is not that different now than it was 4 years ago.