Obama's right on Cuba, very much in contention in Florida

In a speech to the influential Cuban American National Foundation in Miami on Friday marking Cuban Independence Day, Democratic front-runner Barack Obama said the time had come for a change in course in the U.S.' approach to Cuba. While resfusing to call for an outright end to the U.S. embargo on trade with Cuba that has been in place since 1962, the Illinois senator did say that, as president, he would immediately ease travel restrictions on Cuban-Americans, who hope to visit loved ones in the island country more frequently than the presently allowed once every three years. Obama also expressed support for easing the restriction on remittances of Cuban-American families hoping to send money to their relatives to the south. Moreover, Obama expressed support for the idea of direct and unconditional diplomacy with Cuban front-man Raul Castro, who took over for his brother, Fidel, earlier this year.

Obama's comments came at a time when he is sewing up the Democratic nomination for president in a protracted primary battle with rival Hillary Clinton and working to increase his appeal in states he lossed to his rival from New York, particularly swing-states like Florida, which hold critical implications for the general election with presumptive GOP nominee John McCain.

Obama's word choice on Friday, then, was a bold one. Typically, presidential candidates venture to South Florida to pay homage to the traditionally conservative voting block of Cuban-Americans in Miami who have played no small role in deciding the fate of Florida and, by extension, presidential contests on multiple occasions during the past forty years. Even liberal candidates like John Kerry and Al Gore were reluctant to speak out against the U.S. ineffectual policy vis-a-vis Cuba and expressed their support for more of the same hard-handed policy that has produced little in terms of democratic change in the communist country. Indeed, conventional wisdom suggests that any sort of rhetoric thought to question the wisdom of strong-arming the Castro brothers might trigger political suicide for a candidate seeking to win the Sunshine State.

However, as in so many other aspects of Obama's unprecedented run for the White House, the senator has sought out the path beneficial for most Americans and in the interest of a more prominent existence for those abroad in his approach to Cuba. In easing travel and remittance restrictions on Cuban-Americans, Obama would open the door to facilitated more frequent communications between loved ones in South Florida and on the island, which represents a measure to risky to win the express support of Republican and Democratic administrations alike.

Moreover, Obama's decision to sit down, without preconditions, with Cuban President Raul Castro would signal a sea-change in the way in which Washington goes about business in its approach to Communist Cuba. This shift, however, would be wise at least in the sense that it'd break a tradition of diplomatic dysfunction vis-a-vis Cuba that leaves the U.S. isolated amongst the international community and has produced little, if anything, of benefit to either the Cuban or American people.

This blog maintains that isolation very rarely represents the best way to encourage democratic reform in adversarial states. Indeed, direct diplomacy most often stands a far greater chance of producing desired results, as it did for Nixon in Mao's China, Carter with Begin and Sadat in Camp David, Reagan with Gorbachev in the Soviet Union, and, more recently, George W. Bush with Muammar Gadaffi in Libya. In speaking out for a break in the status quo on U.S. policy vis-a-vis Cuba, Obama risked isolation from a key block of voters that could play an important role in decidng whether or not he defeats John McCain and fulfills in his quest for the presidency.

However, perhaps the most interesting thing about yesterday's speech was that Obama both entered and exited a room wild with applause and garnered shining praise from the Cuban American National Foundation's Chairperson Jorge Mas Santos, who backed Obama's argument that a change in path on Washington's approach to Cuba is long overdue. If other receptions in South Florida are in any way similar to the one Obama received on Cuban Independence Day, then there wxists a good chance that the Illinois progressive will put the Sunshine State in his column on election night. As it stands, Florida is very much in contention.