Cuba matters

 

 

 

   

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

By
Max J. Castro                                                                     Read Spanish Version

majcastro@gmail.com

With a mandate from
the American people and the voters of Florida, Barack Obama has the
perfect opportunity not only to keep his promise to end restrictions
on Cuban American travel and remittances; he has the political
capital to pursue a even more audacious approach. In so doing, he may
be able to count on support from a majority of Cuban Americans,
according to a brand new survey conducted by Florida International
University (FIU).

For
Cuban American progressives, the 2008 election brought both joy and
disappointment. On the one hand, we celebrated the victory of Barack
Obama — the one candidate in the race who openly spoke about
dialogue and a new direction for U.S. Cuba policy. At the same time,
many had placed their hopes on a victory by Joe Garcia and Raul
Martinez in their races against hard-line incumbents Mario and
Lincoln Diaz-Balart. Those hopes were frustrated.

It
is still unclear exactly what happened in these races insofar as
Barack Obama won handily in Miami-Dade County at the same time that
all three hard-line Cuban American Republican Representatives
retained their seats. While Cubans on the right hail these results
and claim that the victories by the three Cuban American incumbents
mean that a hard-line stance should continue to inform U.S. policy
toward Cuba, their cheers ring hollow in light of the total picture.

For
one thing, the topic of Cuba hardly came up in the campaign; these
contests were not referendums on Cuba policy. Then there is the fact
that, historically, Cuban American Democrats have seldom received
widespread support from Anglo and African American voters — a
pattern that has never been completely explained but apparently
continued in this election. Finally, the power of incumbency is
great, especially in elections for the U.S. House of Representatives.

There
is no question that there are still many hard core conservatives in
the Cuban American electorate. John McCain won the Cuban American
vote in Miami-Dade by 65 to 35 percent. But the mere fact that for
the first time the Republican troika of Lincoln Diaz-Balart, Mario
Diaz-Balart, and Ileana Ros-Lehtinen were forced to fight against
credible candidates to keep their seats in Congress is itself a
harbinger of change. The exit poll data that show that Obama beat
McCain 55 to 45 percent among Cuban American voters under 30 is a
sign of things to come.

But
the crucial issue is that Barack Obama, unlike John McCain and
Hillary Clinton, did not pander to the most recalcitrant sector of
the Cuban American community as every serious candidate has done for
decades. And that did not keep Obama from winning the presidency of
the United States, the majority of the votes in Florida, or the
Latino vote in the sunshine state. For the first time in recent
history, the hard-line Cuban American vote was revealed as a paper
tiger in the matter of making and unmaking of U.S. presidents.

With
a mandate from the American people and the voters of Florida, Barack
Obama has the perfect opportunity not only to keep his promise to end
restrictions on Cuban American travel and remittances. He has the
political capital to pursue an even more audacious approach. In so
doing, he may even be able to count on support from a majority of
Cuban Americans, according to a brand new survey conducted by Florida
International University (FIU).

The
FIU poll, taken shortly after the election, found that 55 percent of
Cuban Americans in Miami-Dade oppose the continuation of the embargo
and 65 percent favor the reestablishment of diplomatic relations.
This is the first scientific poll of Miami-Dade Cubans to show a
clear majority in opposition to the central planks of U.S. policy
toward Cuba. The
only demographic group in favor of maintaining the embargo and
against reestablishing diplomatic relations was persons polled who
were 65 years old or older.

Cuba
is far down the list of issues that Barack Obama must start to deal
with even before he takes up residence at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.
But a change in the incredibly outdated and perverse Cuba policy
pursued by every U.S. president since 1959 — and with a special
vengeance by George W. Bush — will send an unmistakable message to
the world, especially to Latin America, that here is change they can
believe. Yet it is up to us, Cuban American progressives and
moderates, to tirelessly remind President-elect Obama that Cuba
matters.