As part of my ongoing fascination with Bush’s weakened position with south Florida’s Cuban-American community — and how his faltering support could end up costing him the election — there have been a few interesting developments this week.
First, the St. Petersburg Times picked up on the “backlash” angle, noting that the Bush administration’s harsh new policy restricting travel and remittances to Cuba — which was supposed to be Bush’s way of pandering to pick up more votes — is having the opposite of the intended effect.
Standing in line Thursday for her charter flight to Havana, Zaida Fuentes fumed as she thought about President Bush’s tougher restrictions on travel to Cuba.
“It’s not right,” she said of the new rule allowing Cuban-Americans to visit their families on the island once every three years instead of once a year. “Everybody has the right to see their family.”
The tighter restrictions have created cracks in the once rock-solid support among Cuban-American voters for President Bush, who will hold a campaign rally today in Miami.
Most Cuban-American voters still back Bush, but polls indicate his support has slipped since he won 81 percent of South Florida’s Cuban-American vote in 2000.
The president has lost Fuentes. A lifelong Republican, the 57-year-old retiree has changed her party affiliation to Democrat. She plans to vote for Democratic U.S. Sen. John Kerry in November.
“Before I liked him,” Fuentes said of Bush. “But now – forget about it.”
I can’t think of the last time a policy that was supposed to be an election-year sop has failed so spectacularly. And since it happens to be in Florida — 27 electoral votes, split down the middle — the consequences may be dramatic.
“Florida is so divided, even losing half a percentage point of the Cuban electorate could tip this election one way or another,” said Dan Erikson, director of Caribbean projects at the Inter-American Dialogue, a Washington think tank.
[…]
Bush’s support in Florida’s Cuban-American community has fallen to 66 percent, according to a poll of 812 Cuban-American voters conducted in July by the William C. Velasquez Institute-Mirram Global.
I know 66% support sounds high, but considering Bush won 81% of the Cuban-American vote four years ago, we’re talking about a significant drop.
This won’t earn Bush any new friends either:
After Hurricane Charley hit Cuba, [Ramon Raul Sanchez, head of the anti-Castro Democracy Movement] wrote to Bush asking for a moratorium on the policy so that Cuban exiles could help their families rebuild. He has not received an answer.
Heavy on the conservatism, light on the compassion.
And speaking of Bush’s harsh new policy, the Washington Post had a fascinating item earlier this week that offered a behind-the-scenes look at how the Cuban policy was shaped. The Post’s Peter Slevin explained how the administration’s new tack was driven by a misguided political agenda that — surprise, surprise — had almost nothing to do with actually punishing Fidel Castro’s brutal regime.
Otto Reich, Bush’s special envoy for Latin America who works under Condoleezza Rice, was more or less given carte blanche to shape the policy because the rest of the administration’s foreign policy apparatus was consumed with Iraq. Instead of getting a broad range of ideas, Reich worked with significant input from Jeb Bush, three hard-line Cuban American Republican representatives from South Florida, and Karl Rove. (And if you’re thinking Rove’s presence is further proof that the White House inserts Bush’s political agenda in every policy it considers, you’re right.)
Confusion defined the implementation of the regulations, which were hurried into place June 30 without the usual comment period. It quickly became clear that the administration had not considered all ramifications.
Clearly not.
The only thing that remains to be seen is if the policy hurts Bush’s political prospects in Florida a little or a lot.