Miami's Cuban-Americans favor end to embargo (55% in new, historic polling trend)

[seafan]

Historic change is coming for the U.S.-Cuban relationship.



Poll: Miami's Cuban-Americans favor end to embargo

AP
Dec 2, 2008

MIAMI (AP) -- Most of Miami's Cuban-Americans think the U.S. should end its embargo against the communist island, according to a new poll released Tuesday.
The post-election poll of Cuban-Americans in Miami-Dade County shows 55 percent of Cuban-Americans now think the U.S. embargo against Cuba should end - a profound shift in the heart of the Cuban exile community.

Most respondents were Republicans who voted against President-elect Barack Obama, yet 65 percent or more said the U.S. should drop restrictions on travel and money transfers, re-establish diplomatic relations with Cuba and establish dialogue about immigration and other critical issues.
The poll published by the Brookings Institution and Florida International University surveyed 800 people - 500 by landline phone, 300 by cell phone - and has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.6 percent.

Dr. Hugh Gladwin, director of the Institute for Public Opinion Research at FIU, said the shift in opinions on the embargo had about a 12 percent upswing from a similar poll a year ago.
"That was the surprising thing - that favor ending the embargo had a big jump," Gladwin said. "You could speculate that the election of Obama had some influence."

.....

And from the Miami Herald:

By LIZA GROSS
December 3, 2008

.....

''The poll has an extraordinary historical importance,'' said Guarione Díaz, president of the Cuban American National Council, a nonpartisan advocacy group in Miami.
The results, particularly as they relate to the embargo, reflect ''the fact that the Cuban Americans who were born in the United States or left after 1980 do not have the same vision as those who came in the 60s,'' Díaz said.

.....

'It's a significant jump,'' said Hugh Gladwin, director of the Institute for Public Opinion Research at FIU.
''I'd give two explanations. The first one is that there's been this continuing demographic change. The other factor is the election of Obama. There's a process of change. People see the handwriting on the wall,'' he added.
Respondents included registered and nonregistered voters.

Carlos Pascual, vice president for Foreign Policy at the centrist Brookings Institution in Washington, said the results indicate a new perspective ``in what is going to result in a favorable policy change towards Cuba.''
''There is an awareness that change will not come from the outside but from the empowerment and strengthening of the Cuban people so that they can change their own future,'' he said. ``Punishment as a strategy has not been effective.''
Pascual said the desire on the part of Cuban Americans to help their relatives on the island means that ``family and politics are starting to come together in a way that will affect policy.''

.....

Pascual said the result in favor of reestablishing diplomatic relations with Cuba will give Obama greater political flexibility domestically as he crafts his Cuba policy, particularly because 52 percent of those polled are Republican.
''The way that Cuban Americans are looking at policy is change through engagement, not isolation. That coincides with Obama's general approach to global affairs and what he has said about Cuba,'' Pascual said.

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[Renew Deal]

1. Hopefully Obama has the wisdom and the courage to fix our Cuba policy

Because it's been a mess.

[old mark]

2. We missed a great opportunity when the USSR fell down,

and it should have been done long ago.

mark