History on Cuba - Hidden in Plain View - In Florida's Election Returns

Florida gave us all a gift last night.

In the election returns, hidden in plain view, is license for President-elect Obama to fundamentally rethink U.S. policy toward Cuba and expand on his incremental approach.

Obama won Florida, he carried Miami-Dade County handily, and yet he enters the White House owing no debt of political obligation to the hard-liners in the exile community.

In fact, three Miami-area Congressional candidates who agreed with Obama's minimal reforms on Cuba were all defeated in their campaigns by the Cuban-American Representatives who supported John McCain and President Bush's hard-line on Cuba.

This disposes of the argument, once and for all, that a presidential candidate couldn't carry Florida or win the White House unless he bowed to the hard-liners and supported the harshest possible approach to U.S.-Cuba relations.

The logic was always self-interested; it gave a small but powerful group in South Florida a monopolist grip over a policy that suited their interest instead of the national interest.

President-elect Obama, you proved them wrong, and now you have the freedom to make even bigger and better changes in a policy that everyone knows is a failure.

President Bush put cruel restrictions on the rights of Cuban-Americans to visit their families on the island and limits on the financial support they can provide. You have already promised to repeal those restrictions. Now is the time to go further.

Every American should enjoy the constitutional right to travel freely to Cuba. Today, anyone who wants to visit Cuba - scholars, members of religious communities, businessmen and farmers, artists and athletes - everyone has to go hat in hand to the Treasury Department and ask permission of the bureaucracy to have a license before they can travel legally to Cuba. Most are told no.

Not only is this offensive to our liberty interests, but it denies us and the Cuban people the chance to interact, learn from each other, and scale the barriers that exist to the free flow of information. Tearing this barrier down - by legalizing travel for all Americans--would send a strong and a positive signal to Cuba's government and its people that the United States of America is ready to engage with them in a respectful way.

My friends in Cuba were paying very close attention to this election. One of the dearest sent me this message only moments after word of Obama's victory was celebrated in Havana: "I believe that beginning now we are going to be able to realize a good part of our dreams. I am very happy for you, for your country, for Cuba and for the future."
Obama should end all restrictions on travel and enlarge his goals for reforming Cuba policy.

Nothing could be better for our image in Cuba and Latin America, and nothing would be more in keeping with the message sent by his election to people all over the world. Now that Florida's hard-liners are out of the political equation, this is a breakthrough opportunity for President-elect Obama, and he should make the most of it.

Sarah Stephens, director of the Center for Democracy in the Americas, is author of the forthcoming report: "9 Ways for US to talk to Cuba and for Cuba to talk to US".

Read more reaction from HuffPost bloggers to Barack Obama's victory in the 2008 presidential election

Comments

[Norge]

I truely hope Obama will do a bit more than continue the awful cruelty with which America has dealt with Cuba for the past 30 years. Economic punishing of Cuba these many years has caused just unspeakable suffering for a large part of innocent people and the end result of such torture is a type of bitter hate if understanding is not there that forgivness cannot penetrate.

It is one of the most foolish of policies and and can have the most terrible of consequences over the long term.
The next generation always finds a way to pay past debts of torture and cruelty.

Obama can change all of that and close the http://www.soaw.org and start fresh with a peace agenda
and neighborly good will.

And another hurricane is on the way in over Cuba and after the winds and waters many suffering will need help.

[Sir681]

If ever our hypocrisy, arrogance and our reputation as a bully was ever on display, it is with this cruel and pointless embargo. We just don't seem to know when to cease a course of action that clearly hasn't worked and isn't working.

Then again, we had invaded a tiny speck of an island called Grenada. With their population of eighty to ninety thousand people, every single man, woman and child can be taken out of that country, placed in any medium-sized stadium we have here and still have room left over for more. And we said that they were a threat to us.

[peggio]

I could not agree more. As a kid, growing up in Miami we used to visit Cuba at least once a month. We loved the island and the people and made friends that have lasted a lifetime. Miami's "Versailles" ex-pat community pine for their dictator, Batista. As time passes there are fewer of them and more of their assimilated off spring. They and we should be able to visit and help to reunite with our closest neighbors. China is our most favored nation. Where is the fairness?

I believe we have elected a man who can bring us all together. Let's begin with Cuba.

[MajorKong]

Imagine if Castro hadn't had the US embargo to blame all his failures on over the years.

[INDYBIGT]

If we don't lighten up on Cuba, China will fill the void. Cuba has just announced the discovery of vast oil deposits. We need to open up reciprocal trade agreements and remove travel bans while we allow them to protect themselves from predatory economic assistance programs and Yankee corporate greed.

[1201SLD]

Pragmatic diplomatic and economic relations with Cuba are long overdue.

Sanctions have never been effective against anyone; they simply impose self-reliance on the targetted country. Improved relations with our "enemies" allows us to infect them with capitalism, entitlement, and consumerism, which is a much cheaper and easier way to bring them to heel than enforcement of sanctions.