Carpetbagger regulars know that I pay particular attention to two traditionally-Republican constituencies that, I believe, may shift to Kerry-Edwards this year. The first is the military vote, which I discussed in some detail yesterday. The other is the Cuban-American vote, about which I’m just as optimistic.
In the 1992 and 1996 elections, Bill Clinton was able to make significant inroads with the Cuban community en route to carrying Dade and Broward — South Florida’s two highly-populated counties — by large margins. Of course, the Elian Gonzales controversy quickly eroded potential support for Dems, undoing much of the support that had been shifting away from the GOP. On Election Day 2000, Bush enjoyed over 80 percent of the Cuban vote in Florida.
Since then, however, things have been shaky for Bush among Cuban Americans. In July 2003, 12 Cubans, just 40 miles from the U.S. coast, were captured and detained. The Bush administration negotiated with Castro’s regime to repatriate the would-be immigrants once Castro agreed not to execute them and limit their prison sentences. It was not a welcome move in the Cuban community and even Jeb Bush criticized the move.
A year ago next week, 13 Republican Florida state legislators sent Bush an angry, almost threatening, letter. They said if Bush did not make “substantial progress” toward meeting the demands of the Cuban-American community, “we fear the historic and intense support from Cuban-American voters for Republican federal candidates, including yourself, will be jeopardized.”
Relations between Bush and the Cuban-American community went from bad to “complicated” this year. In May, Bush announced harsh new restrictions on American travel and remittances to Cuba, which was supposed to shore up his political support with a key constituency. Instead, a backlash against the new policy has begun.
Most importantly in this election season, Bush has handed John Kerry a tremendous opportunity — which the Dems are taking full advantage of.
Bush “won” Florida by just 500 votes four years ago, and that was with 4-to-1 support among Cuban-American voters. The Kerry campaign simply needs to cut that support a little to make a difference and win the state’s 27 electoral votes. Right now, KE04 is well on its way.
The Kerry campaign…is starting to pay closer attention to [Cuban] voters. In addition to Kerry’s recent statements, they now have a full-time staffer organizing Cuban-Americans. They’ve recruited Fernando Amandi, a former pro-Bush Republican and business leader, to raise money. And the Democrats writing the party platform recently approved language supporting “a policy of principled travel to Cuba that promotes family unity and people to people contact.” It won’t take a lot for these efforts to prove worthwhile. “We don’t have to win the Cuban vote to be successful,” says a top Kerry aide in Florida. “We just have to pick up our margin by five or ten points.”
Four years ago, recognizing the community’s anger over Elian, Gore largely gave up on even trying to win votes among Cuban-American voters; it wasn’t going to work. Kerry and Edwards, meanwhile, haven’t stopped campaigning for these votes.
John Kerry’s campaign pledged [on July 27] an all-out effort to woo Cuban-American voters to its side, hoping to exploit an emerging division in the once reliably Republican voting bloc.
[…]
“They gave us an unbelievable opportunity and we have a policy that gives us an opportunity to take advantage of that,” said Tom Shea, Kerry’s Florida campaign manager.
Several polls have suggested some softening of support for Bush, mostly among younger Cuban Americans, presumably those with family still on the island.
“We plan on going after that vote aggressively,” Shea said. “They’ve left themselves very vulnerable.”
And Edwards’ first solo, post-convention visit was — you guessed it — in South Florida yesterday with Cuban-American voters.
Vice presidential nominee John Edwards stepped up Democratic efforts to woo typically Republican Cuban American voters on Monday, huddling privately with community leaders in Miami as he vowed to put the squeeze on Fidel Castro.
Even if Bush’s harsh new Cuban policy didn’t exist, Kerry and Edwards would probably still be pursuing these votes. But the stunning unpopularity of the administration’s measures has turned a once-reliable GOP bloc into one of the most important swing constituencies in the nation.
And even before these efforts began in earnest, polls hinted at a real opportunity here. Kerry may not do well among, if you’ll pardon the expression, “old-timers,” but the New Democratic Network reported a couple of months ago that younger Cuban-American voters are more-than-open to Dem outreach.
Democrat John Kerry enjoys a commanding lead over President Bush among Cuban Americans born in the United States and a decided edge among Cubans who arrived in the country after 1980, according to a new poll of Miami-Dade Hispanics that reveals deep divisions within a community traditionally viewed as staunchly Republican.
The poll, commissioned by a Democratic group that is targeting Hispanic voters, shows Kerry with a 58-32 percent advantage among Cubans born in the United States, suggesting that the Massachusetts senator has an opportunity to siphon potentially critical support from Bush.
In Florida, there is no room for error. Indeed, a few months from now, we may look back at Bush’s Cuban policy — which Miami’s Carl Hiaasen recently described as “futile, cruel, and coldhearted” — as the dumbest and least effective political pander in recent presidential history.