Warning to Democrats running for President: Don't drink the anti-embargo kool-aid

What the Pro-Castro lobby does not want Democratic and Republican candidates to know about Cuban American politics in Florida.

Young Cuban Americans picketed Clinton & protested Cuban embassy opening (2015)

Colton Carpenter's article "The Cuban Paradox" published in the Harvard Political Review   on December 31, 2018 offers an excellent analysis on what happened with the Cuban American vote both in 2016 and 2018.

Exit polls for the greater Cuban-American population in Florida, for example, indicate that a disproportionate amount of Cuban-Americans supported Trump compared to other Latino groups. While 54 percent of Cuban-Americans supported Trump, only 35 percent of Latinos nationwide did. Similarly, in the 2018 Florida gubernatorial election, Republican Ron DeSantis won twice as many Cuban-American votes as his Democratic opponent Andrew Gillum. A nearly identical percentage of Cuban-Americans also chose current Republican Gov. Rick Scott over Democrat Bill Nelson in the Florida senate race. The Cuban vote was solidly red in 2016 and 2018 despite the trend of Latino voters being reliably blue.

Sadly, when it comes to trends and explaining how Democrats gained and lost Cuban votes over the years Carpenter's article failed to look at the policies put forward, and relied on the usual suspects who continue to argue that Cuban Americans have been assimilated and no longer prioritize U.S. - Cuba policy. Reviewing recent history provides a different picture.

Candidate Bill Clinton in 1992 ran  as a "hardliner" on Cuba policy supporting the Cuban Democracy Act also known as the Torricelli Bill. A bill that President George H.W. Bush had initially refused to sign, but relented once Cuban exiles got Candidate Clinton's backing. As was the case with his approach to China once he got into office Clinton did an about face.

Congressman Robert Torricelli ( Democrat)

First, President Bill Clinton between 1993 and 1996 pursued a policy of engagement with the Castro regime. In 1994 the Clinton administration initiated regular contacts between the U.S. military and the  Castro regime's military that included joint exercises at the Guantanamo Naval base. This was  confirmed by Raul Castro in a December 2008 interview with Sean Penn where he stated "we've had permanent contact with the US military, by secret agreement, since 1994." Not only contacts but joint military exercises according to General Raul Castro:

"It is based on the premise that we would discuss issues only related to Guantánamo. On February 17, 1993, following a request by the United States to discuss issues related to buoy locators for ship navigations into the bay, was the first contact in the history of the revolution. Between March 4 and July 1, the Rafters Crisis took place. A military-to-military hot line was established, and on May 9, 1995, we agreed to monthly meetings with primaries from both governments. To this day, there have been 157 meetings, and there is a taped record of every meeting. The meetings are conducted on the third Friday of every month. We alternate locations between the American base at Guantánamo and in Cuban-held territory. We conduct joint emergency-response exercises. For example, we set a fire, and American helicopters bring water from the bay, in concert with Cuban helicopters.

During this period of "constructive engagement" brutal massacres of Cubans such as the July 13, 1994 "13 de Marzo" tugboat massacre and the February 24, 1996 Brothers to the Rescue shoot down took place. The shoot down involved two planes blown to bits over international airspace by Cuban MiGs killing three American citizens and a Cuban resident who were engaged in the search and rescue of Cuban rafters. Since it occurred while President Clinton was seeking re-election and his only options were to do nothing, military action, or toughen sanctions he opted for the latter signing the Cuban Libertad Act of 1996 better known as the Helms-Burton. Once again Bill Clinton ran as a hardliner on Cuba and was rewarded with more support from Cuban Americans at the ballot box. 

Clinton signs the Helms-Burton bill in 1996

 However once re-elected Clinton again pursued normalized relations, despite being limited by a codified embargo that he could no longer unilaterally lift because of the Helms-Burton bill that he had signed. Bill Clinton was the first sitting president to shake hands with Fidel Castro on September 6, 2000 and one month later he signed the Trade Sanctions Reform and Export Enhancement Act (TEFRA) that opened trade between the Castro regime and U.S. companies. Opposition in congress led to that trade not being subsidized by U.S. taxpayers through government backed credits ensuring that business would be cash and carry.

This combined with the Elian episode costs Al Gore Cuban American support in 2000 and led to the loss of Florida in a tight race. Florida would remain in Republican hands when John Kerry ran for president in 2004. He had a radically anti-embargo position and did poorly with Cuban-Americans as a result.

Candidate Barack Obama courts Cuban American votes in 2008

Barack Obama as a Chicago Senator was deeply critical of the embargo on Cuba, but when he decided to run for president, he spoke at an event hosted by the Cuban American National Foundation and announced his support for the Cuban embargo in 2008 and reaffirmed this position when he ran for re-election in 2012.

Barack Obama did not take that chance when he was running for the White House in 2008 and 2012 on a pro-embargo on Cuba platform, but was willing to risk Hillary's prospects in 2016. To be fair Hillary Clinton also bought the conventional wisdom.  

Bendixen-Amandi polls and the FIU Poll with dubious methodology have tricked more than one politician into believing that the Cuban-American community has changed and that backing a policy that legitimizes the Castro regime while human rights worsen on the island will not erode their support.

The candidacies of John Kerry (2004) and Hillary Clinton (2016) in Florida indicates that is not the case. 

Did President Obama underscoring his Cuba policy in Miami-Dade County help or hurt Democrats in narrow statewide races?

Narrow races in Florida.

Did it help or hurt to re-litigate Cuba policy in Miami in the mid-term elections?

President Barack Obama came to South Florida and campaigned for Mayor Andrew Gillum and Senator Bill Nelson in their respective state-wide races in the last days of the campaign. During his campaign stop in Miami he contrasted his Cuba policy with that of President Trump's. Was that a wise decision for Democratic strategists?

Election eve polls showed the Democratic candidate for Governor and the Democratic candidate for the U.S. Senate both ahead in the polls. Did the last minute campaigning by President Obama in South Florida, where he highlighted his Cuba policy help or hurt Democrats in statewide races?  Did he help to drive up the anti-Castro Cuban vote?

Let us consider the following. First, Obama did well among Cuban-Americans in South Florida both times he ran (2008 and 2012). However, he ran as a supporter of economic sanctions on both occasions, and was introduced to the Cuban-American electorate at an event organized by the Cuban American Nations Foundation in 2008. The shift in policy did not occur until December 2014. There is evidence that part of the reason that Hillary Clinton lost South Florida narrowly to Trump in 2016 was due to the Cuban American vote.

Following the election the Obama White House on January 12, 2017 released a "Statement by the President on Cuban Immigration Policy" that did two concrete things: further restricted the Cuban Adjustment Act and ended the Cuban Medical Professional Parole Program. According to Elena Toledo writing in the PanAm Post 15,135 Cubans were declared “inadmissible” in the United States in 2017 and 14,037 Cubans were rejected from entering through Laredo, Texas alone.

For Cuban-Americans it is not only normalizing the Castro regime, but shutting the door on Cuban refugees, and Cuban doctors subjected to terrible working conditions in other countries. These are not popular positions.

Pro-Castro lobbyists for decades have been claiming that the Cuban-American vote was changing into one more in line with their positions. Democrats who bought into that line have paid a heavy price, but that was not always the case. Democrats Dante Fascell, and Claude Pepper were prominent liberals in Congress for decades who consistently won the Cuban-American vote because they were tough on Castro, much the same way Senator Bob Menendez and Congressman Albio Sires are in New Jersey today.

The congressional district with the largest concentration of Cuban-American votes in the country is currently Florida's 25th.  On election day 2018 Representative Mario Diaz-Balart, who represents that district, cruised to victory with 60.5% of the vote versus his democratic opponent Mary Barzee Flores who favored President Obama's Cuba policy who got 39.5% of the vote. Congressman Diaz Balart's district includes, the heavily Cuban and working class city of Hialeah. Did they vote him into office for his positions on tax cuts or his human rights centered policy approach to Cuba, Venezuela, and Nicaragua?

If one looks at the other two districts that have Cuban American members of Congress the demographics breakdown with a large non-Cuban Hispanic population, non-Hispanic whites, and African Americans for the most part.  They are also areas that went Democratic in national elections in the past. It is also interesting to underscore that Donna Shalala (Democrat ) released advertisements in Spanish exposing deferential comments made by Maria Elvira Salazar, her opponent,  to Fidel Castro during an interview. Furthermore, Shalala also went after her Republican opponent for suggesting Trump should engage in talks with Raul Castro. Lastly, there was also Mayra Joli, a third party pro-Trump Hispanic candidate running as an independent who got 2.5% of the vote. Incidentally, President Obama allegedly snubbed candidate Shalala. Did it hurt or help her chances in that district?

Representative Carlos Curbelo lost by 1.8% to Debbie Mucarsell Powell in a race that focused on healthcare in a district that trends Democratic and includes the Florida Keys. These are competitive districts and in the year with a blue wave this candidate lost by a narrow margin.

Recounts may soon be underway for the next Governor and Senator in Florida, but Democrats should be asking themselves did it have to end that way? Or was it a mistake to re-litigate Cuba policy in Miami on the eve of an important mid-term election?

Lessons from the Embargo on Apartheid South Africa for Castroite Cuba pt. 2

 Unfortunately one of the new lessons from the campaign to impose an embargo on the South African Apartheid regime is that that since 2000 with the Supreme Court decision citing the Supremacy clause in Crosby versus National Foreign Trade Council which means that relations or trade with a foreign country is governed by the federal government and that state and local governments can no longer place their own sanctions on foreign regimes unless it is in accordance with federal government policy. In 2000 the Supreme Court forced Massachusetts to do business with companies that had done business with the military junta in Burma. According to constitutional scholar Sanford Levinson in the Fordham Law Review the Crosby decision compels state and local governments to cooperate with evil.

In recent days it appears that this sordid practice may be repeated in Florida where a Brazilian multinational is suing over a state law that bans companies that do business with the regimes in Cuba and Syria. The Miami Herald in a June 5, 2012 editorial stated that:

The U.S. Constitution does not give states the right to conduct their own foreign policy — indeed, imagine 50 states conducting their own foreign affairs; that would be disastrous. The Civil War clarified where “states’ rights” stop.

Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/2012/06/05/2834402/another-inevitable-lawsuit.html#storylink=cpy

The Miami Herald got it wrong, the history of the United States indicates just the opposite. Governors of states are considered subnational foreign policy actors pursuing commercial agreements on behalf of their respective states. Would the Miami Herald call on the governor of Florida along with other state and local officials not to pursue commercial opportunities for their respective state and local governments? Furthermore, the rights of states and local governments to impose restrictions on nefarious regimes and unjust practices has a long history. John Kline from Georgetown University in a paper titled "Continuing controversies over state and local foreign policy sanctions in the United States" exposes the inaccuracies in The Miami Herald's editorial:

Recent state and local government sanctions on business with Burma and certain Swiss banks renews a debate over foreign policy powers in federal systems that operate in an integrated global economy. International business promotion has become an accepted function of state and local governments. More controversial is the imposition of foreign policy sanctions, where economic involvement becomes a lever to pursue political goals rather than an objective in itself. When compared with past cases, including South Africa and the Arab boycott, recent state and local initiatives demonstrate both continuity and fresh departures in federalism's evolving adjustment to the global economy. These developments can be used to examine theoretical concepts such as constituent and multilayered diplomacy. They also argue for improved practical cooperation among the multiple and diverse actors engaged in foreign policy issues.

That is to say that the tactics and strategies used by the anti-Apartheid movement to organize a grassroots campaign that obtained national sanctions against the South African government by first passing sanctions at the local and state level to build momentum nationally would be impossible today thanks to the already mentioned 2000 Supreme Court decision. Grassroots activists and US citizens have been stripped of that power while corporations in business with despicable and brutal regimes such as Burma, China, Cuba and Syria have been empowered.This is another example of the centralization of power in the central government that in fact undermines federalism,

Nevertheless citizens and activists can still impact federal policy via a successful strategy executed by the anti-Apartheid movement in the 1980s that overrode a presidential veto:

Our three-pronged strategy had worked: first, consult with grassroots activists and provide them with the grounds from which to press in congressional districts for the most principled position possible – in this case,complete disinvestments and embargo, second, work with willing national organizations to generate a lobbying presence on behalf of bold government action – maximum sanctions, in the case of apartheid – always creating pressure to move the middle to the left, third, engage congressional colleagues and educate them about the issues and the pathways for change.

At the same time people power, one of the most potent tools in the arsenal of anti-apartheid activists is still available today despite the Supreme Court decision. During the struggle against Apartheid it had a huge impact:

 Among the most sustained campaigns, involving national organizations as well as providing a target for local demonstrators, was the campaign to boycott Shell that paralleled campaigns in Europe directed at the same multinational company. Beginning with a sit-in by the Free South Africa Movement at the Shell offices in Washington, DC,159 the campaign gained support not only from the United Mine Workers, but also other unions, including the AFL-CIO trade union federation. And it tied the action to support of the National Union of Mineworkers in South Africa. Desmond Tutu joined the press conference launching the boycott, and churches joined actively in the coalition. The Interfaith Centre for Corporate Responsibility (ICCR) added Shell to its list of 12 key corporate ‘partners in apartheid’ targeted for divestment actions.

 The lesson here is clear a coordinated targeting of companies doing business with repressive regimes such as Cuba targeting them with boycotts, protests, sit-ins and peaceful invasions of said companies until they divest from the Castro regime. Its worked before and it can work again today.