Crist: A high-risk diver

HAVANA — Over the weekend, we Cubans watched a very risky cliff-diving competition. At the Morro, from a height of 27 meters, champions and former champions of cliff diving gave a thrilling display of valor. A badly executed dive from only 20 meters is the equivalent of smashing into a concrete floor. A bad entry would be a human disaster, even if deep-sea divers and rescue boats are available nearby.

I’m using cliff diving only as a point of reference. So, let me go to politics, perhaps the most brutal and least forgiving sport in the world today.

Have you ever seen the TV series “House of Cards”?

Charlie Crist, former Republican governor of Florida, now a Democratic candidate to that post, makes a high-risk, high-altitude dive when he states that the United States’ policy toward Cuba is wrong and inoperative (he makes no moral or ethical judgments about the blockade) and issues statements that coincide with or follow statements made by President Obama in Miami last November and by diplomatic chief John Kerry.

He also opines that U.S. relations with the neighboring island must be repaired because that action would be beneficial for the Sunshine State. Those statements roiled the waters of the defenders of immobility.

But Crist went beyond the 20-meter diving board, upping the challenge and the risk. Some days ago, he announced that he plans to travel to Cuba, a project that (I’m not being glib) could be a virtual, media dive to explore the waters and the rocks below. There’s more than enough evidence to speculate this way.

In politics — especially in the world in which we live and in the highly developed nations, where the U.S. excels — situations develop where the deeds, the actions lack importance. What’s decisive is the management of public opinion through the media to accommodate that opinion in favor or against.

There, in addition to the money, money and more money, lies the challenge of the announcement made by Crist, who I am sure is not suicidal but a big gambler. Does the reader recall any candidate to a high post in Florida ever coming out with announcements that will inevitably become part of his campaign? Prudence is an established rule and Crist has apparently broken it.

At this moment, according to reliable polls, the environment seems to favor Crist’s pronouncements, despite various attempts to rarefy it.

Crist has dealt with his former ‘NO CUBA’ from two perspectives. First, he speaks about his planned trip describing the government in Havana with the strong and harsh epithets normally used in the media, typical of the hard-line sector: “regime,” “dictatorship,” “totalitarian,” etc.

Second, while adopting the discourse of the hard-liners, he speaks about the economic benefits and creation of new jobs that a cautious and constructive relationship with Havana would mean for his state. Florida’s unemployment rate is higher than 6 percent and there’s a need to create 592,667 jobs. Studies show that the elimination of the U.S. trade blockade would create thousands of new jobs in Florida.

Florida is the world’s great gate of big business with Latin America, and 50 percent of the state’s foreign market is generated in Miami. Ninety percent of all shipments to the south pass through its ports and airports.

I should point out that, in his high-dive project, Crist would be accompanied by some businessmen and specialists in Cuban affairs. His movements and the results of his actions would be closely watched by Cuban-Americans who own about 251,000 Florida businesses, some of whom already have sent to Havana their own “scouts” to study the possibilities for trade.

Let me make clear that many of these scouts don’t need official contacts. They only need to touch the Cuban reality through relatives and trusted friends.

One of the warnings made about Crist’s projected trip is that he will be manipulated. Really? Does anyone really believe that a politician with his background and know-how will let himself be treated like a child in kindergarten?

Does anyone think that the Cuban government, whose leaders have been giving gradual proof of pragmatism, is incapable of evaluating the importance of a U.S. politician willing — also through a well-calculated and well-founded pragmatism — to run for governor of Florida by considering relations with the “accursed” island?

I don’t know if Crist will come or not. Nor can I predict if his outcome on election night will be triumphant, although opinion surveys are favorable. But if he takes the plunge and comes to Cuba, I think he’ll be able to walk our streets wherever he wants and talk with whomever he likes.

To keep him from taking the plunge would be a mistake. Dialogue may be waiting below.