[Marxism] A new NEWSWEEK Poll underscores Obama's racial challenge.

[Walter Lippmann]

THE NEW YORK TIMES
June 1, 2008
Democrats See Cuba Travel Limits as a Campaign Issue in Florida
By DAMIEN CAVE
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“Newer voices are being heard,” said Lisandro Pérez, former director of the
Cuban Research Institute at Florida International University and a supporter
of looser travel restrictions. “There’s a general sense that we’re not in a
straitjacket anymore in terms of the discourse, and we’re no longer just a
monolith.”

The Democrats are mainly relying on a generational shift among
Cuban-Americans. The so-called historicos or historic exiles who arrived
immediately after Cuba’s 1959 revolution have been dying off, even as their
children move beyond a narrow focus on Cuba and as fresh waves of Cubans
have poured in.

Polls of the community have confirmed a tilt toward engagement, especially
through travel. A survey in April 2007 by Florida International University
found that 55.2 percent said they favored “unrestricted” travel to Cuba for
all Americans — a reversal from three years earlier, when 53.7 percent said
they opposed it.

An even larger proportion, 64 percent, said they wanted a return to pre-2004
rules, which allowed one trip per year.

Many Cubans, it seems, feel like Mr. Martin, 53, an engineer who left Cuba
in 1994. He tried to return for a visit in 2002 only to have the Cuban
government deny his visa request for five years. Now after finally visiting
in 2007, he cannot go back until 2010 because of American law.
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The warm reception Mr. Obama received at the Cuban American National
Foundation’s luncheon on May 23 — even as he pushed for more engagement with
Cuba — made public what scholars like Mr. Pérez have described as a sea
change in approach. After years of bellicosity, contact has come to be seen
by some as a political weapon.

FULL:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/01/us/01florida.htm



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     WALTER LIPPMANN
     Los Angeles, California
     Editor-in-Chief, CubaNews
     http://groups.yahoo.com/group/CubaNews/
     "Cuba - Un Paraíso bajo el bloqueo"
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