domingo, 6 de julio de 2014

Democrats' Florida push calls for US shift on Cuba

Posted on Saturday, 07.05.14

Democrats' Florida push calls for US shift on Cuba
BY MICHAEL J. MISHAK
ASSOCIATED PRESS

MIAMI -- When Charlie Crist went to Miami's Little Havana recently, the
Democratic candidate for governor stood before a crowd and said what few
politicians have in decades of scrounging for votes in the
Cuban-American neighborhood: End the trade embargo against Cuba.

"If you really care about people on the island, we need to get rid of
the embargo and let freedom reign," he said, shouting above a small band
of protesters who responded with chants of "Shame on you!"

Crist's supporters cheered louder.

It was a scene inconceivable just a few years ago, when politicians were
careful about what they said on the issue, for fear of alienating
Cuban-American voters, many of whom fled Fidel Castro's Cuba in the 1960s.

But Democrats now sense an opening with newer Cuban arrivals and
second-generation Cuban-Americans who favor resuming diplomatic
relations with the communist island.

In a sign of just how much the climate has shifted, Democrat Hillary
Rodham Clinton, who backed trade limits when she ran for president in
2008, is now calling for the embargo to be lifted. She described it as
"Castro's best friend" and said it hampers "our broader agenda across
Latin America."

Her words mark the first time a leading presidential contender from
either political party has suggested reversing the 52-year-old policy.

The efforts represent the largest challenge to Cuban-American orthodoxy
in decades and could help reshape American foreign policy.

It also could alter the political landscape in the largest swing-voting
state, where Republicans long have dominated the Cuban vote by taking a
hard line on the embargo.

Crist's campaign will be the first statewide test of whether the trade
restrictions are still a live wire for politicians in Florida, home to
70 percent of the nation's Cubans.

Crist is a former Republican governor who once said he would only visit
Cuba "when it's free." Now that he's a Democrat and trying to regain his
old job, he has floated the idea of going to Havana "to learn from the
people of Cuba and help find opportunities for Florida businesses."

He argues that the embargo has failed because it has not toppled the
Castro government but has hurt the Cuban people. "The definition of
insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a
different result," he told reporters at the opening of a campaign office
in Little Havana.

Florida Republicans are outraged, casting Crist's position as a betrayal
of the Cuban-American community.

"I'm going to stand with Cuban-Americans that believe in freedom,
believe in democracy, believe in freedom of speech and oppose the
oppression of Cuba," said GOP Gov. Rick Scott. Crist, he added, will "be
standing with Castro."

U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio, a potential GOP presidential candidate whose
parents left Cuba in the 1950s, said the embargo is "the last tool we
have remaining to ensure that democracy returns to Cuba one day."

Lifting the embargo, he said, would "further entrench the regime in
power by giving them more money to carry out their violent repression of
people's fundamental rights and dignity."

Nationwide, the share of Cuban registered voters who identify with or
lean toward the Democratic Party has doubled in the past decade, from 22
percent to 44 percent, according to the Pew Research Center. Less than
half of Cuban voters now affiliate with the Republican Party, down from
64 percent over the same time period.

President Barack Obama won Florida twice, campaigning on easing travel
restrictions for Cuban-Americans who want to visit their families on the
island and allowing them to send more money to their relatives. In 2012,
he captured nearly half the Cuban-American vote, a record for a Democrat.

The shift is driven in part by changing demographics.

Cuban-Americans, once the dominant bloc of Florida's Hispanic vote, have
seen their political clout diminished by a huge influx of Puerto Ricans,
Mexicans and people from Central and South America, who lean Democratic.
In the 2012 election, 42 percent of Hispanic voters in the state were
Cuban, an 11 percentage point drop from 2000, according to the Census
Bureau's Current Population Survey.

The exiles who arrived in the decade and a half following Cuba's 1959
revolution have been dying off while their children and fresh waves of
immigrants hold a different view of Cuba. More than one-third of the
Cubans residing in Miami-Dade County arrived after 1995, with many
supporting travel and trade policies that strengthen ties between the
U.S. and Cuba, said Guillermo Grenier, a lead researcher for the Cuban
Research Institute at Florida International University.

Even some of South Florida's most prominent Cuban-American business
leaders, long among the most strident defenders of the embargo, are
publicly talking about investing in Cuba.

"The politics are way behind public opinion on this one," said Steve
Schale, a Democratic consultant and Crist adviser who managed Obama's
Florida campaign in 2008.

Overall, polls of the community have confirmed a tilt toward engagement,
with the most recent survey by Florida International University finding
Cuban-Americans in Miami split over the embargo, which was a near
record, and 71 percent saying it had not worked either very well or at all.

"The embargo! It's so screwed up!" said Caridad Novo, as she sipped
espresso at a cafe in Doral, a Miami suburb.

The 52-year-old Cuban, who came to Florida during the 1980 Mariel boat
crisis, said U.S. trade restrictions drive up the cost of sending goods
to her family in Cuba. Shipping a 4-pound can of milk to her 3-year-old
grandson in Havana costs $55, she said.

But some scholars and political operatives say Crist risks energizing
Republicans in the conservative exile community while attracting little
support from younger Cuban-Americans and newer arrivals, who tend to be
less politically active.

The recent Florida International University poll found that less than
one-third of those who have arrived since 1995 are U.S. citizens. Voter
registration rates among newer arrivals lag their older counterparts by
double digits.

"What is changing is opinions" on the embargo, Grenier said. "But for
the opinions to become relevant to policymakers, they have to translate
into more than just opinions. They have to be votes."

---

Associated Press writers Laura Wides-Munoz in Miami and Matt Sedensky in
Riviera Beach contributed to this report.

Follow Michael J. Mishak on Twitter at https://twitter.com/mjmishak

Source: MIAMI: Democrats' Florida push calls for US shift on Cuba -
Business Wires - MiamiHerald.com -
http://www.miamiherald.com/2014/07/05/4219513/democrats-courting-floridas-changing.html

No hay comentarios:

Publicar un comentario