Can a Cuban Democrat win in South Florida?

Real change in our hard-line Cuba policy may depend more on who's in Congress than who wins the White House. Suddenly, Miami's three Cuban Republicans look beatable.

By Kirk Nielsen

Read more: Democratic Party, Fidel Castro, Hillary Rodham Clinton, Politics, Cuba, Opinion, Barack Obama, 2008 election

Feb. 21, 2008 | MIAMI -- Fidel Castro resigned as Cuba's president Tuesday, but he still holds power in the United States. The anti-Castro animus of South Florida's politically connected exile community has long been, and remains, the driving force behind the Cuba policy of the U.S. government.

That may continue to be the case until El Comandante's dying day -- or it could change come November with a Democratic victory. But the crucial Democrat on Election Day may not be the presidential candidate, even though the current front-runner has indicated a willingness to soften America's hard line toward Cuba. Real policy change may hinge on whether a Democrat wins one of three South Florida House seats currently held by Cuban-American Republicans. It's a once unthinkable possibility that, this fall, may suddenly be more than a pipe dream.

Fidel Castro has always cast a peculiar spell over South Florida. When he fainted during a speech in Havana in June 2001, many Cuban exiles here dropped what they were doing to drive around town honking their car horns. Miami TV stations sent reporters to Cuban restaurants to chronicle the rants of patrons wishing for his death. When he fell ill in July 2006, the ranting and honking recommenced. After Tuesday's announcement, there was another round of public noise-making.

Castro has also long had an outsize influence on Washington. Presidents and congressmen alike have catered to the rage of the Cuban diaspora, sustaining a 46-year-old trade embargo against the island that even exiles admit has been a failure. Republicans and Democrats share the blame. Efforts to lift the embargo and allow people-to-people contacts have repeatedly died in Congress. The Bush administration has actually clamped down further, making travel to the island more difficult.

The power of the exile community has meant that few presidential aspirants with a real shot at the White House have risked questioning U.S. policy. Republicans in particular pay heed to South Florida's half a million Cuban-American voters, who are longtime allies, and cater to their needs. In July 2004, during his reelection bid, President Bush tightened restrictions on travel to and trade with Cuba. Now people with relatives on the island can visit only once every three years and send just $300 every three months. The move made life harder for exiles recently arrived from Cuba, but it wasn't aimed at them. Bush was solidifying his support among those Cuban-Americans who can vote, the ones who arrived in the U.S. in the 1960s and '70s and have lived here so long that they don't travel back to Cuba to visit relatives.

In turn, South Florida's Cuban-Americans have traditionally voted 4-to-1 for Republicans. Their loyalty has given the GOP a head start of 300,000 votes in statewide elections. In 2004 President Bush's margin of victory over John Kerry in Florida was 381,000 votes.

This election cycle, the two Republicans who are still in the race for the White House have made sure to up the hard-line ante. (Ron Paul advocates lifting the embargo, but he was never in danger of securing the Republican nomination.)

Back in December, Mike Huckabee dumped his anti-embargo stance of yore in order to embrace U.S. sanctions on trade and travel to Cuba. On Tuesday, Huckabee cast suspicion on Castro's resignation, saying he would continue to have power in Cuba until he was dead.

Likely Republican nominee John McCain has also been under Castro's spell. During visits to Miami prior to Florida's Jan. 29 primary, McCain vowed not only to uphold the embargo and travel ban but also to increase spending on Cuba democracy assistance programs and Radio and TV Martí, which are Florida-based Spanish-language broadcast services aimed at Cuba. Surveys consistently show that Radio and TV Martí have minuscule audiences, but their federal funding continues to increase.

Like their Republican counterparts, the two Democratic candidates seized the opportunity of Castro's resignation to call on the Cuban government to free political prisoners and take steps toward free elections. But where Hillary Clinton has essentially supported the Bush administration's policy, Barack Obama has dared to depart from the pack.

Obama has not proposed ending the trade embargo, but last August he delivered a speech in a Little Havana auditorium that included a pledge to end restrictions on family visits and remittances to Cuba. American citizens without relatives in Cuba would have to wait until a democratic opening occurred.

But perhaps more important, three Latino Democrats running for Congress in South Florida this fall have agreed on a policy identical to Obama's. Their gambit is based on the belief that the hard-line approach is less popular among Cuban-Americans than it once was -- that just as Castro is growing old and infirm, so are his most implacable foes on the mainland.

Next page: In all three districts, the incumbents have seen their margins of victory drop in each of the past three elections