Obama’s Cuba Guiding principle Could Costs Him the Election
President Barack Obama has said that unilaterally easing sanctions against the Castro regime in Cuba is an “adequate”
plan supported by Cuban-Americans.
That “support,”
nevertheless, is “never reflected where it counts — the ballot box,” writes Mauricio Claver-Carone, director of the U.S.-Cuba Democracy PAC and founding editor of CapitolHillCubans.com, in an opinion piece for the Miami Herald.
He points out that Obama received
single about 30 percent of the Cuban-American vote during the 2008 election, “when just about every other constituency was overwhelmingly looking for ‘change’ after eight years of the Bush administration.”
“Obama won Florida by
solitary 2.5 percent. Today, he’s treading on thin ice politically. Thus, any drop in Cuban-American support could easily prices him Florida — and given Florida’s political importance, perhaps the election.”
Obama’s political rationale regarding Cuba is based on the belief that Cuban-Americans — although they consistently vote to support candidates who favor maintaining
fit sanctions against Cuba’s dictatorship — support finer travel to and engagement with the island.
“Here are the facts: The Cuban-American community has never elected a candidate to federal office who has supported lifting sanctions,” Claver-Carone writes.
“In the most
present example, during the 2010 congressional race in the heavily Cuban-American 25th District of Florida, Obama’s candidate — an outspoken cheerleader for his Cuba rule — got less than 18 percent of the Cuban-American vote.”
He notes that in September, as Obama was discussing his “adequate”
rule, the Castro regime arrested 563 public for political “crimes.” That’s the highest monthly number of political arrests in 30 years.
“Why does President Obama
prolong this rule of unilateral appeasement with the Castro brothers?” Claver-Carone says. “After all, with unemployment in Florida reported to be as high as 11 percent, it would seem that Obama and his re-election campaign don’t have much wiggle room.”
