Will Obama's Stance on Cuba Hurt Him? - Democratic Underground

ariesgem

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Wed Aug-22-07 06:07 PM
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Will Obama's Stance on Cuba Hurt Him?

Conventional political wisdom in the bellwether state of Florida has always focused on Cuban-Americans, especially those influential exiles who take a hard line against any U.S. engagement with Fidel Castro's Cuba. Cross them, says the presidential candidate handbook, and say adios to the Sunshine State's 27 electoral votes.

So why would Barack Obama — who is scraping to keep up with Hillary Clinton for the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination — ignore that seemingly golden rule? Why, in a Tuesday op-ed piece in the Miami Herald, would he challenge the Cuban-American elders and call for dismantling President Bush's hefty restrictions on Cuban-Americans making visits and sending money to relatives in Cuba?

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Maybe it's because Obama knows a new conventional wisdom may well be taking shape in the state — one that could actually make his declarations this week an asset when Florida holds its primary election next January. "A democratic opening in Cuba is, and should be, the foremost objective of our policy," Obama wrote in the Herald. But while making that standard declaration, he also argued that "Cuban-American connections to family in Cuba are not only a basic right in humanitarian terms, but also our best tool for helping to foster the beginnings of grass-roots democracy on the island." As a result, he said, "I will grant Cuban-Americans unrestricted rights to visit family and send remittances to the island."

The restrictions — widely viewed as a thank-you to the hardline exile bloc that helped Bush win Florida in 2000 — allow Cuban-Americans to visit the island for only 14 days every three years and limit remittances to $1,200 per year. "It's almost as if you have to decide ahead of time when a relative is going to die," says Miami immigration attorney Magda Montiel Davis, a Cuban-American moderate who says she is now voting for Obama after reading his Herald article. Bush and hardline leaders insist the policy helps keep U.S. dollars out of Castro's hands. But "it has also made more dependent on the Castro regime," Obama argued in the Herald, "and isolated them from the transformative message carried there by Cuban-Americans."

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In response to Obama's statement, Hillary Clinton continued her recent attacks on his perceived foreign policy naivete, insisting that "until it is clear what type of policies might come with a new government, we cannot talk about changes in the U.S. polices toward Cuba." But by playing that safe card in Florida, Clinton may have allowed herself to be "outmaneuvered by Obama on this one," says one Cuban-American leader who asked not to be identified, pointing to a recent Florida International University poll showing that more than 55% of Cuban-Americans in Miami favor unrestricted travel to Cuba.

http://www.time.com/time/politics/article/0,8599,1655373,00.html