The numbers game

It does appear that what I was saying yesterday has really happened. As the graph above from The Wall Street Journal shows, the numbers of Cuban-Americans voting Democrat has increased steadily over the years since 2000 and now they are voting in roughly equal numbers with their Republican colleagues. What this means is that the demographics have fundamentally changed. The Democratic half of the community by and large favours contact with the island and wishes to visit it freely, send money to their families and possibly even look forward to having a share in a business there once the new private sector becomes established. The Republican half favours the embargo and punishing Cubans, driving down their living standards in the hope that they will turn on the government. The former group is growing, the latter is declining. The latter is declining because the community is dying off, they are early migrants who left in the sixties, have few ties to the island and whose children do not share their vehement hatred of Castro. The latter group are growing because they are new migrants and they are growing fast. Look at these figures posted today by Phil Peters on his blog:

Numbers of Cubans who obtained legal permanent residency in the past ten years, according to the Department of Homeland Security.

2002                28,182

2003                9,262

2004                20,488

2005                36,261

2006                45,614

2007                29,104

2008                49,500

2009                38,954

2010                33,372

2011                36,261

Total              326,998

That's nearly 3 per cent of the total Cuban population becoming US citizens in the past nine years. Think about it, can this be allowed to go on? Cuba simply cannot afford to keep losing these people and the US can't keep absorbing them - especially since the Cubans are made a special case among the Hispanic communities, benefitting from the ridiculously anachronistic Cuban Adjustment Act and the ability to obtain citizenship easily. Logic tells you that sooner now than later something has to change - and following this election, Obama has the best opportunity to do it than any President since Kennedy.

More on all the voting from Fabiola Santiago in the Herald; in the Wall Street Journal, “Cuban-Americans Move Left;” and in the Financial Times, “Cuban-Americans Stun Republicans.”

Bell tolls for the hardliners

It is still too early to say, but some commentators are suggesting that Obama may have won a majority of Cuban American votes in Florida. If they are correct then the power of the right-wing Cuba-American lobby is in terminal decline. True enough, Republican Castro baiters Ileana Ros-Lehtinen and Mario Diaz-Balart may have both won with thumping majorities in their districts, but overalll in Miami-Dade and Broward counties where most of the Cuban-Americans are located, Obama won over Romney. It is obvious that he could not have done so without picking up a good proportion of their votes. This might be as much as 62 per cent, as my fellow blogger Phil Peters reported yesterday.

Add to this the fact that Joe Garcia became the first Democrat Cuban-American ever to be elected, and that veteran Castro hater Connie Mack lost his senate seat, it all adds up to a very interesting scenario. Garcia openly supports more engagement with the island. The split in the Cuban-American community in Florida could therefore not be more clear.

When they finally count all the votes we will know for sure, but either way Obama won the White House without the need for Florida at all. He owes the Cuban right-wing nothing. Furthermore, he is in a final term and therefore should have a free hand to open the door to Cuba. I am 99 per cent certain that he will do so.

Make no bones about it, Obama wishes to end socialism in Cuba just as much as Ros-Lehtinen, but he differs on how it should be done. I use the following analogy: Instead of trying to starve Cuba into submission through an embargo, a strategy that has not worked, Obama inclines towards what I call the poisoned apple approach. Just like the wicked stepmother, he would try to kill Cuba with apparent kindness. It's going to be an interesting four years.

The stakes in Florida

 As the US election day looms, polls are showing America’s largest swing state Florida to be tied in a dead heat between Romney and Obama. Florida has 29 electoral votes and the third largest “Hispanic” population in America. Normally this means an easy victory for any Democrat.

But oh dear! It turns out that about a third of these Florida Hispanics are Cuban-Americans.

A poll last week of voters in Florida’s Miami-Dade county by the Miami Herald found the following breakdown:

                 Obama     Romney       Undecided
White:         64%             30%             6%
Black:          95%               2%             3%
Hispanic:      33%            62%              5%

Hey, wait a minute!” liberals wail. “But every poll on the planet shows Obama with at least 70% of the U.S. Hispanic vote. So what’s going on here?”
Americans of Cuban heritage as usual, that’s what’s going on. The Miami Herald poll broke it down further, noting that Cuban-Americans support Obama 19%, Romney 76% and 5% are undecided.
In brief: no ethnic group in the U.S. comes even close to matching Cuban-Americans in their level of disdain for President Barack Obama in particular and the Democratic Party in general.
What does this mean for the election? It means if Romney wins and he needs Florida to win and he wins in Florida - he will owe his victory to the Cuban -Americans... so kiss goodbye to any change in US policy towards Cuba. However, if Obama wins and he needs Florida to win and he wins there, he will owe them NOTHING!
It's not rocket science...

Time for a sane approach to Cuba?

Now that the Cuban government has removed the exit visa requirement for its citizens to travel, the penny is beginning to drop as to what this means for US Cuba policy. Some, such as the editorial writers from the Los Angeles Times, fear that it is going to result in a deluge of Cubans entering the United States and produce a situation akin to the so-called 'rafters crisis' of the early nineties, while others, such as Democrat Representative Jim McGovern, argue that it represents yet another tick on Washington's wish list for Cuba and therefore merits a reciprocal act by the Administration.
Of course nothing is going to happen on US Cuba policy at all until after the election. McGovern hopes, as all sane people must, that Obama wins next week. McGovern hails from Massacussetts, home of the Kennedies - and next year is the 50th anniversary year of JFK's assassination. Shortly before he was killed, Kennedy was pursuing a back channel approach to Fidel Castro in the hope of settling their differences in his second term. Let's hope that an Obama second term will finally lay that ghost to rest...

Restored National Theatre reopens

With Cuba’s National Theatre having been completely restored, The Havana Times reports that the doors to its enormous Avellaneda Hall — with its three levels and 2,254 seating capacity —  re-opened on Sunday, October 28, for the opening ceremony of the Havana International Ballet Festival.

Surpassed in size only by the capital city’s Karl Marx Theater (which seats 5,000), the main hall of the cultural complex showed off its new look following months of renovation work. This improved image sharply contrasts with the gloomy appearance this majestic theatre has suffered for years.

$100,000 if you hit Fidel, $20,000 for Raúl and Che

According to London's Daily Mail, documents released this week finally confirm beyond doubt that the Kennedies hired the Mafia to shoot Fidel Castro. They agreed a price of $100,000 for killing Fidel and $20,000 for either Raúl or Che Guevara. One has to ask oneself how can it be that the President of a supposedly democratic country should be hiring criminals to carry out murders on its behalf? Has anything changed?

50 years ago this week the Cuban Missile Crisis began. On Tuesday 16th October the esteemed Cuban international relations expert Prof. Carlos Alzugaray Treto will be giving a talk on the topic at London's Institute for the Study of the Americas. Venue and details HERE. 
  

Democracy, shamocracy, who cares so long as we have a vote?

As the Venezueleans go to the polls today to re-elect President Hugo Chavez, Cuba's daily Granma newspaper carries huge coverage of the election campaign and includes a graphical guide (pictured) to show how the Venezuelans vote in what Jimmy Carter has called the best electoral system he has witnessed.
Two things stand out here: the first is that despite the charges that Chavez is a dicator, Venezuela IS a liberal democracy by any of the standards set by the so-called 'West'. The second is that while Cuba falls short of that benchmark because it does not have a multi-party system, it is patently obvious that its government has absolutely no fear about that fact since it openly explains and extols the virtues of such a system in its national newspaper. That Cubans understand democracy and voting systems and know what others have and might actually in fact NOT WANT such a system themselves  is a possiblity that few in Washington can comprehend - just as they can't imagine how machinations using new media and ICT to try and provoke a 'Cuban' spring like that in Arab countries might not work, as my collegaue Phil Peters deflty pointed out in his blog on Friday.