Political pandering, South Florida edition

Every four years, presidential contenders discover the special needs of South Florida's Cubans. A bipartisan, candidate-by-candidate guide to flip-flopping and talking tough about Castro.

By Vincent Rossmeier

Read more: Republican Party, Rudy Giuliani, Democratic Party, Hillary Rodham Clinton, Florida, John McCain, Politics, Cuba, News, Mike Huckabee, John Edwards, Barack Obama, 2008 election, Mitt Romney, ron paul

Jan. 29, 2008 | There are two things in politics as certain as red ties and taxes. The first is that presidential candidates will discover just how wonderful ethanol is shortly before they start campaigning in Iowa; the second is that when those same candidates touch down in Florida, they will instantly become heroic warriors in the fight against Fidel Castro. More than 1 million Cuban immigrants and Cuban-Americans live in South Florida, and they wield outsize political clout in this battleground state.

In this election cycle, presidential candidates from both parties have carefully calibrated their positions on Cuba. Democrats are not officially allowed to campaign in the state because of the tussle between the state and national parties, but nearly all the Republican contenders have been down to Miami's Calle Ocho for a cafecito in advance of Tuesday's primary. Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, who has staked his campaign on a win in Florida, has pushed especially hard for the support of the Cuban-American community. But the awards for pandering to anti-Castro hard-liners go to Hillary Clinton on the Democratic side and Mike Huckabee on the Republican, as the following checklist of the candidates' positions will show:

Barack Obama: In August of last year, Obama caused a stir among both Florida's Cuban voters and the foreign policy community when he published an Op-Ed in the Miami Herald that advocated changing the U.S. government's policy toward Cuba. In the piece, Obama stated his support for lifting travel restrictions to and from Cuba. But unlike John Edwards, who also advocates easing travel regulations, Obama endorses a change in the amount of money (currently limited to $300 per household each quarter) that Cuban-Americans can send to family members on the island. In the Op-Ed, Obama wrote, "The primary means we have of encouraging positive change in Cuba today is to help the Cuban people become less dependent on the Castro regime in fundamental ways." As one Obama supporter pointed out to journalist Kirk Nielsen, what's really interesting about Obama's position is that it is essentially the same as former President Bill Clinton's. Obama has voted to end TV Martí, a U.S. effort to undermine Castro with TV and radio broadcasts, on two occasions, putting him in opposition to Hillary Clinton. John Edwards: Edwards has voiced his staunch support of the U.S. trade embargo on Cuba since his first presidential run in 2004. Last year, he joined Barack Obama's call to lift travel restrictions between the two countries, but that is the only change in the current U.S. policy toward Castro's regime that Edwards would seek as president. He has stated that once Castro dies, the United States should "evaluate his successor and then decide" whether to alter the embargo. The main difference between Edwards and Obama is that Edwards would not increase the amount of money Cuban-Americans could send to their relatives. Hillary Clinton: Clinton supports a continuation of the United States' current policy toward Cuba. In a press release following Obama's Miami Herald Op-Ed, Clinton's campaign wrote, "Until it is clear what type of policies might come with a new government, we cannot talk about changes in the U.S. policies toward Cuba." Clinton averred that she would consider lifting travel restrictions only when Castro is out of power. As documented by Kirk Nielsen, Clinton has essentially endorsed the policy of the Cuban Liberty Council, a Republican-leaning advocacy group that supports the Bush administration's policy of keeping Cuba as isolated as possible, although there is virtually no chance that the CLC would endorse her. She also recently voted to perpetuate TV Martí. John McCain: McCain is a longtime advocate of the embargo and would like to boost U.S. spending on the anti-Castro TV and Radio Martí programs. Recently, he has spent a great deal of time and energy in Florida attempting to remind voters of this commitment. In a 2007 interview, he vowed not to use military action to end Castro's reign. But he also stated that only upon Castro's death would he offer a "package of trade, of assistance, of economic development, of assistance in democratization." Recently, McCain's supporters have also been championing him to Florida's Cuban-American leaders. While speaking to a group of Hispanic leaders in Florida this month, Connecticut Sen. Joseph Lieberman, a McCain ally, assured all in attendance of McCain's revulsion toward Castro's regime. McCain's history of working against Castro includes a 1992 bill he cosponsored, titled the "Cuban Democracy Act," which sought "to promote a peaceful transition to democracy in Cuba through the application of appropriate pressures on the Cuban Government and support for the Cuban people. The bill prohibited U.S. corporations from trading with Cuba and prevented U.S. citizens from visiting the nation.

Next page: Until recently, Huckabee was the only Republican candidate not named Ron Paul to support an end to the embargo