by David Paul Kuhn
June 24, 2008
Eight years after the furor over the repatriation of Elian Gonzalez to
Cuba possibly cost Al Gore the state of Florida in his 537-vote loss
to George W. Bush, the international custody saga has returned to
haunt another Democratic presidential nominee, Barack Obama.
With two top advisers who played key roles in the episode=97 Greg Craig,
who represented Elian=92s father in Cuba, and Eric Holder, then a
Clinton administration deputy attorney general when federal agents
stormed the Miami home of Gonzalez=92 relatives to remove the then-six-
year-old and return him to his father in Cuba=97Obama now finds himself
on the wrong side of an emotional issue in a battleground state.
The wound reopened again last week after Gonzalez returned to the
headlines in South Florida following a re****t in a Cuban communist
youth newspaper that he has joined Cuba=92s Young Communist Union.
Miami-based Republican political consultant Ana Navarro said the
stature of Holder and Craig in the Obama campaign =93shows a tone
deafness to the Cuban American community concerns.=94
=93Elian Gonzalez cost Al Gore Florida and the presidency,=94 she added.
Indeed, in a display of lingering resentment, Obama=92s speech before
the U.S. Conference of Mayors in Miami last weekend was picketed by
several dozen activists protesting against Craig, who serves as a
foreign policy adviser to Obama, and Holder, who is a legal adviser
and a member of the Illinois senator=92s vice-presidential search
committee.
Miami Mayor Manny Diaz, an independent who rode his role as the lawyer
for Elian=92s Miami relatives into the mayor=92s office in a 2001 upset
victory, has pointedly declined to endorse Obama.
As Republicans see it, the return of the Elian Gonzalez debate to the
Spanish-language media will only strengthen traditional GOP loyalties
among Cuban Americans at a time when there may be a generational
divide between older hardliners and younger voters who are receptive
to a different direction in American policy toward Cuba.
=93Every four years for at least the last 20 years some media and some
pollsters always predict that the Democrats are going to make inroads
with Cuban Americans,=94 said Otto Reich, who is advising John McCain on
Latin American affairs and served in a senior capacity for the
administrations of the last three Republican presidents. =93Perhaps one
day that might be true. But I don=92t think this is the case now. Barack
Obama is not the kind of candidate for a people who tend to be very
traditional in their values and very hawkish in their foreign policy
sup****t.=94
Florida Republican Sen. Mel Martinez, a former Republican National
Committee chairman who was born in Cuba, echoed the sentiment.
=93Every four years I hear the same speculation,=94 Martinez said. =93What
I=
sense in the community is a much stronger concern about an Obama
presidency among Cuban Americans than anything I remember in [John]
Kerry=92s campaign,=94 Martinez added.
The last Democrat to make inroads with the Cuban American community
was Bill Clinton=97at least until the Gonzalez affair. And as Mauricio
Claver-Carone, director of the pro-trade embargo US-Cuba Democracy
PAC, notes =93[Clinton] had a more hard-line approach to dealing with
the Cuban dictator than the Republican.=94
The Obama campaign argues that 2008 is a different landscape, in part
because of a deepening generational divide on policy toward Cuba.
Memories of John F. Kennedy=92s failed Bay of Pigs invasion have faded
and, with Fidel Castro no longer in power, Republicans have lost a
longtime antagonist who served as a rallying point for Cuban
Americans.
State Rep. Luis Garcia, a Democrat who won a seat in 2006 in the heart
of Miami=92s Little Havana, said that if Obama keeps the debate on
domestic issues he can chip away at the GOP advantage.
=93Economic issues are hurting everybody, especially older Cubans,=94
Garcia said.
=93I don=92t think Cuban Americans are necessarily voting exclusively on
Cuban policy anymore,=94 added Freddy Balsera, an Obama spokesperson on
Spanish language media and a Florida Democratic consultant.
=93Traditionally [voting exclusively on Cuban policy] has been the case.
What you are seeing is that the problems that are affecting average
Americans like the economy or the war in Iraq are also affecting Cuban
Americans.=94
Balsera believes that Cuban American voters will decide the 2008 race
=93has nothing to do with Elian Gonzalez or Greg Craig.=94
=93The Elian [Gonzalez] scuttlebutt was a Republican stunt, quite
frankly,=94 he said. =93I=92m not denying that it was effective before but
people are wise to that trick.=94
For his part, Obama has promised to reverse a Bush administration
policy to cut back on money transfers to Cuba as well as visas to the
island. He has also said he would only meet with Cuban leader Raul
Castro after preconditions had been met that =93advance the cause of
freedom for the Cuban people.=94
The McCain campaign notes that during the 2008 Democratic primary
season Obama said he would meet with leaders of the Cuban regime and
other rogue states without preconditions, though Obama later attempted
to clarify his remark. McCain=92s aides have also pointed out that
during Obama=92s 2004 Senate campaign he wrote on a questionnaire that
he sup****ted the normalization of relations with Cuba.
Those questions about Obama=92s approach to Cuba lead Jaime Suchliki,
who directs the University of Miami's Institute for Cuban Studies, to
question whether he will get more than 30 percent of the Cuban
American vote.
=93I don=92t think that the Cuban American community is going to put their
trust in Obama in terms of Cuban politics,=94 he said.
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