In a column about to be published by the Miami Herald, US presidential candidate Barack Obama takes on the “conventional wisdom” once again.
And it's a big one.
AP reports:
Obama's campaign said Monday that, if elected, the Illinois senator would lift restrictions imposed by the Bush administration and allow Cuban-Americans to visit their relatives more frequently, as well as ease limits on the amount of money they can send to their families.
"His concern is that this has had a profoundly negative impact on the Cuban people, making them more dependent on the Castro regime, thus isolating them from the transformative message carried by Cuban-Americans.''
Obama explained his position in an op-ed piece Tuesday in The Miami Herald.
It wasn't an off-hand comment, or a debate response. Once again, he drives the issues in this campaign with care and aforethough.
UPDATED: Here is the column, now online.
This is truly historic. And long overdue. More after the jump…
The Miami Herald opinion piece is not online yet...
Updated (link above)...
Obama leads again. Here's the money 'graph:
Accordingly, I will use aggressive and principled diplomacy to send an important message: If a post-Fidel government begins opening Cuba to democratic change, the United States (the president working with Congress) is prepared to take steps to normalize relations and ease the embargo that has governed relations between our countries for the last five decades. That message coming from my administration in bilateral talks would be the best means of promoting Cuban freedom. To refuse to do so would substitute posturing for serious policy -- and we have seen too much of that in other areas over the past six years.
(Does anybody still believe it is "naive and inexperienced" to be willing to to engage in "aggressive diplomacy" and "bilateral talks"? Oh, right, that dog didn't hunt.)
But even before it was published, it apparently had already ignited a prairie fire through the younger generation of the Cuban-American community, that has had it with the ideological rigidity (stoked by Washington, conditioning visas and citizenship upon them by insisting they take a vocal position against Castro) of its parents’ generation:
But sentiment in the Cuban-American community is changing. Unlike the early waves of immigrants who brought their entire families, often by plane, to the U.S., most Cubans now flee by boat and are forced to leave relatives behind. Fewer of these immigrants were overt political opponents of the government, and they want to be able to visit loved ones and to send money home.
Many Cuban exiles are also frustrated with the U.S. embargo, which has failed to yield fruit after nearly 45 years. And with the specter of an ailing Castro and a possible change in leadership, they are more open to changing U.S. policy.
Last week, the Miami-Dade Democratic Party came out against the restrictions. Obama will speak at a fundraiser for the chapter Saturday at the Miami-Dade Auditorium, the same Little Havana site where Ronald Reagan won over many in the Cuban-exile community more than two decades ago.
Joe Garcia, the group's chairman, praised Obama's proposal.
This will be lots of fun to follow in the coming days. The "conventional wisdom" machine will go ballistic (again). The right-wingers will bare their teeth. The DINO liberals will loose a few of theirs. Biden will likely go against Obama but watch Dodd and Richardson, they know better, oh, yeah, this could be interesting.
Senator Clinton will have to decide: Is she in or is she out?
Or will she just obfuscate (again)?
And why hasn't any US presidential candidate said this out loud?
They've been afraid.
Fear.
The politics of fear.
Let's see who is fearless in the coming days.
And let's see who really walks the walk of the politics of hope.
Because, really: Isn't 49 years of a failed policy enough?