St. Pete Times: GOP losing its grip on Miami's Cuban-Americans

[seafan]

The times, they are a'changing.


GOP losing its grip on Miami's Cuban-Americans

By DAVID ADAMS, Times Latin America Correspondent
Published September 15, 2007

MIAMI - For decades it has been a ritual of American politics for presidential candidates to visit this city hoping to win over Cuban-American voters.
Usually a cry of "Viva Cuba Libre" and promises to keep the economic noose on Cuba would do.
Starting with Ronald Reagan, they have all done it, Republican and Democrat alike.
It's still early in this election season, but something odd is happening. The old anti-Castro rhetoric seems to be fading.

An array of Democratic candidates at a Miami forum broadcast live last weekend on the Spanish-language network Univision weren't exactly beating the drum on Cuba.
The harshest line any of them could muster was Hillary Clinton's affirmation that Cubans "deserve liberty and democracy." In fact, two of the candidates -- albeit not front-runners -- spoke in favor of softening current U.S.-Cuba policy. "Why can't we recognize Cuba?" asked former Alaska Sen. Mike Gravel. "What's the big deal?"
But if the candidates don't sound like they used to, that may be because Miami's Cuban community doesn't think like it used to.
"There has been a seismic shift in the political views of Cuban-Americans," said Joe Garcia, chairman of the Democratic Party of Miami-Dade County. "The Cuban vote is becoming less Republican."
For decades, Miami Cubans were considered die-hard Republicans. Former President Ronald Reagan famously cemented that bond in May 1983 when he visited Miami's Little Havana neighborhood, downed a Cuban coffee at a popular restaurant, and gave an impassioned anti-communist speech at the Miami-Dade County Auditorium.

Among Hispanics in Miami-Dade, Republicans still outnumber Democrats 251,929 to 132,432 123,985 are not affiliated with either party. But almost 25 years after Reagan's speech, the Republican Party's once seemingly unbreakable grip on the Cuban exile community may be loosening.

.....

In the audience was Giancarlo Sopo, a 24-year-old government and economics student, who carried a poster saying "Cubanos con Obama" despite a political pedigree that is thoroughbred Republican.
His father participated in the Bay of Pigs, and both parents were staunch Reaganites. Sopo, 24, supported Bush in 2000, though he was too young to vote then.
"I was a Bushie," he says over coffee near where he grew up in Miami's Little Havana. "I was following the traditional lineage of my family's politics."
He puts his conversion down to a confluence of factors, including Obama's inspirational life story. He also likes his humanitarian Cuba policy.
But mostly it was a factor he thinks could swing many young Cuban-American voters away from their traditional Republican party roots in 2008.

"What tipped me over? It was the Iraq war," he says.

.....

"This is typical fodder about 'Doomsday for Republicans in Florida' that they come out with every four years," said Al Cardenas, former state Republican Party chairman who now heads the Florida presidential campaign for former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney. "At some point there may be change, but I don't think this year will be any different."
While Republican registration may be down, Cardenas said younger Cuban-Americans are concerned about Cuba.

Not according to the polls, says Bendixen, citing four focus groups he has organized.
Younger exiles show less interest in Cuba and are more engaged in national issues, he says. "They give Cuba almost no importance," he said. "For them it's education, health care, and Hispanic issues such as immigration."
On top of that, new arrivals from the island are less enthusiastic about isolating Cuba, in large part because they still have relatives there.

.....

Cuban-American lawyer Otto de Cordoba, 51, also considered himself a die-hard. He voted for Bush in 2000 and again in 2004. Today, he describes himself as "on the fence, leaning Democrat." He puts that down to his "utter disillusionment" with the Bush administration's "incompetent" handling of the Iraq war, as well as Hurricane Katrina.
Like other Cuban-Americans he's also upset over what he calls "the anti-Hispanic tone" of the Republican party.
As Cuban-Americans deal with their party affiliation, the political balance in South Florida is shifting demographically, too.
Sopo says his mother was shocked when he supported John Kerry in 2004. But she happily drove him to an Obama rally in Tampa in April. She also joined him for Obama's Miami campaign appearance last month. So did Sopo's sister, Giannina, and his 86-year-old grandmother, Adelaide, who has never voted for a Democratic presidential candidate.

"She used to think Kerry was a communist!" he said. "But she gave Barack a standing ovation."

[peacetalksforall]

1. "cemented" by Reagan? Rabid hate of Democrats started with

the Bay of Pigs when Kennedy was fooled by the Cuban-American terrorists and the CIA who bungled the job and couldn't get Kennedy to do it again.

[iamjoy]

2. GOP Has LOST It's Grip

period. We don't need to add the "Cuban Americans" in there.