Obama to Address Cuban American National Foundation in Miami, Friday morning, May 23

[seafan]

(Local radio in Miami reported this morning that Obama's speech will be carried live on CNN.)



Obama to Address Cuban Group, Marking Shift From G.O.P. Alliances

By Larry Rohter
May 22, 2008

.....

But attitudes on the other side of the Florida Straits, in Miami, may also be shifting, as demonstrated by this simple fact: on Friday, Senator Barack Obama, a proponent of what he calls “tough, direct presidential diplomacy” with America’s enemies, including Cuba, is scheduled to address the Cuban American National Foundation, the most influential of Miami’s anti-Castro Cuban exile groups.

A decade ago, it would have been difficult to imagine Mr. Obama, or any other liberal Democrat for that matter, being invited to speak in such a setting, or even thinking it was worthwhile to do so. Republicans still campaign for votes among the Cuban-American community, including most recently Senator John McCain who was in Miami earlier this week. And the foundation was closely identified with the Republican Party, and many of its members were openly hostile to liberal Democrats and any approach to the Castro regime, an attitude that dated back to John F. Kennedy and the Bay of Pigs.

But the politics of Miami-Dade County have been changing in recent years. And so, it would appear, has the foundation: Mr. Obama’s address comes during commemorations of Cuban independence week that the group has sponsored for a quarter of a century, and whose main speaker that first year was none other than Ronald Reagan.

.....

But John McCain may be Misreading the Cuba Vote, as he blew off an invitation to address the Cuban American National Foundation:


May 22, 2008

.....

McCain got the jump on Barack Obama, who is slated to speak to the Cuban-American National Foundation in Miami on Friday. But while Obama is expected to outline a more nuanced approach to Cuba, McCain's visit to Little Havana and his speech to more conservative Cuban-Americans were rote repeats of the routine every White House hopeful performs in Miami: cafe cubano at the Versailles restaurant followed by equally caffeinated bellowing about his anti-Castro bona fides and the Cuba-policy cowardice of his opponent, in this case Obama. President Franklin Roosevelt "didn't talk with Hitler," McCain argued, attacking Obama's recent suggestion that if elected President he would open a dialogue with communist Cuba's leader, Raul Castro, as well as leaders of other hostile nations such as Iran.

The McCain mambo, not surprisingly, got robust applause at the town hall meeting he addressed. But outside those walls the response was more subdued. If McCain is vulnerable to the charge that his presidency would effectively be a Bush third term, he might want to explore Florida beyond the echo chamber of the older Cuban exile community. He's likely to find a growing number of younger, more moderate Cuban-Americans who no longer believe the 46-year-old U.S. trade embargo against Cuba will topple the Castro regime and who yearn to hear candidates discuss matters besides Cuba, like the alarming lack of accessible health care among Latinos. "Waving the bloody shirt of anti-Castro politics is going to be less effective" in this election, says political analyst Dario Moreno of Florida International University in Miami. "The Cuba issue is losing its saliency."

....

More from the Times:

“We are willing to see what he’s got to say,” Sandy Acosta Cox, a press spokeswoman for the group, said when asked about Mr. Obama. “Being an election year, it is natural and fitting that we try to get all three candidates.” Mr. Obama was “the first and only to accept, and we are open and welcoming to that,” she added.

Two forces in particular have contributed to shifts in the way the politics of Cuba now seem to be playing out in South Florida, both of them demographic. One is that the original generation of exiles, which came to the United States beginning in the 1960s, is gradually fading from the scene — replaced by their children, who are Florida-born and raised and, perhaps as a result, are not single-issue voters, but also care about matters ranging from abortion to education.
The second is that the relative weight of the Cuban-American population in Miami-Dade County, and in Florida overall, appears to be decreasing. Thanks to immigration not just from Colombia and Nicaragua, to name two groups whose numbers have grown, but every country in South and Central America and the Caribbean, the non-Cuban percentage of Florida’s Latino population, which does not have the same historic links to Republicans, continues to grow.

As a result, Miami is increasingly a generically Hispanic city rather than a specifically Cuban-American city, a tendency that is likely to be accentuated as more and more of the newer immigrants gain citizenship and the right to vote. Elsewhere in the state, a significant migration of Puerto Ricans, who historically tend to vote Democratic, to the Orlando area has also helped dilute the relative importance of the Cuban-American vote.

Those new dynamics are already on display in some of south Florida’s Congressional races, in which Cuban-American Republican incumbents are facing their first significant opposition in years.

.....

In particular, Mr. Obama indicated that he favors lifting restrictions both on visits by Cuban-Americans to their families on the island and on the money they send back to those relatives. Those changes, which are supported by many in the Cuban-American community in Florida and New Jersey, “I think would make sense,” he said.
On that point, at least, Mr. Obama has already found some common ground with the foundation. “We have always been in favor of easing those restrictions, which the Bush Administration tightened,” Ms. Acosta Cox said. “The internal opposition on the island needs to be able to receive assistance in as many ways as possible.”