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See this link - sorry - not relevant to this post but I wanted to make sure this fellow was heard.

http://www.lanuevacuba.com/nuevacuba/notic-07-03-2091.htm

If the traditional norm is 'verbal' support while maintaining the policy of 'protecting' the Cuban tyranny from invasion through the old Soviet agreements, then it doesn't matter what they say.

But if a candidate states that they will take measures to "ENSURE THE OVERTHROW" of the Cuban dictatorship and allow the Cuban people to live in freedom, then they will get my vote REGARDLESS of who they are!

LaConchita:

You are so very right. Although my own expectations of U.S. politicians (including the Cuban-American kind) have been so subtantially lowered that I would be willing to support any candidate who states that he will use his executive fiat to end the "Dry Foot/Wet Foot" policy on his first day in office. The U.S. president may not be able to stop Castro's Coast Guard from killing helpless Cuban refugees, but he can and should stop the U.S. Coast Guard from doing so.

took a look at the poll results .... wow, are we split or what?

Manuel,

- Cuba has been and continues to be a sworn and dangerous enemy (biological weapons) to the USA being so close to the U.S., especially now in this era of world terrorism. The potential for Cuba to act or aid spy/terror cells outside and inside this country has already been shown.

- The acceptance and aquiesance to this fact by so many U.S. administrations for so many decades now continues to be an unexplainable situation in my mind.

- The cowardice shown by the U.S. Kennedy administration in April of 1961 directly caused and brought the U.S. population to come to the brink of nuclear attack in October of 1962.

- That same demonstration of cowardice in April of 1961 had a tremendous and direct psychological corrolation to cause the knee-jerk reaction by President Johnson into taking the opposite extreme by throwing the U.S. into a foolish and unprovoked war against Vietnam, all for the purpose of "looking strong against Communism" to the American people.

- Eliminate Castro in 1961 and you could concievably have saved many thousands of lives both in Cuba and USA.

- I fully believe that had CUBA been liberated in 1961, Cuba would be free, Kennedy would have lived, Johnson would not have been President, and the USA would not have seen justifiable reasons to engage half-a-million troops in Vietnam.

- I dare say, that a U.S. sponsored invasion of Cuba today (sileky with Cubans and Cuban-American military involvement), would reap far more benefits than negatives, both in the short term and long term.

I would love to see this become a substantive issue on the campaign trail in '08. I just don't think the Republican Party knows how to handle it.

We made the mistake of assuming that Castro's regime would collapse after the fall of the Soviet Union and now Cuba has pretty much become the 800 pound gorilla in the room that everybody wants to ignore. The problem is that while we've been ignoring them, they've been successfully influencing the political climate in Central and South America.

Then, if we start talking about regime change, Iraq comes up all over again and the Democrats will move Heaven and Earth to obstruct our path to accomplish anything substantive.

It's going to take somebody with a lot of guts to tackle this issue and as much as I love Rudy, I'm just not seeing him or anybody in the field willing to touch it. I really hope I'm wrong.

"took a look at the poll results .... wow, are we split or what?"

Gigi,

I believe this is more a reflection of the fact that we don't really believe what the politicians will say anymore, consequently the issue itself tends to become somewhat less meaningful ('important') over the years.

Now, if a candidate appears and states that they will ENSURE the overthrow of the Cuban tyranny if he is elected, I believe that you will see a rise to over 80% for the Cuba issue to be of importance to all of these voters.

LaConchita:

Well, we agree on everything. That's very nice. However, after Iraq, I don't think the U.S. is going to be engaging in any more nation-building for a while.

Conchita, your assumption about the missile crises beaing the catalyst to LBJ's involvement in Vietnam is a stretch.

First, LBJ was one of the best domestic policy presidents we've ever had. He was a master at compromise and at getting laws through congress. He knew nothing of foreign policy. He relied on JFK's folks, McNamera and Rusk for their input on foreign policy and unfortunately for LBJ, their views were usually the only ones he heard. Frankly, LJB was getting bogus intelligence and no one ever gave him news he did not want to hear and he was convinced all was going well. Also, LBJ when given the choice of an early pull out in 1964, balked at the idea for fear that Bobby Kennedy would use it to challenge him for the Presidency and have LJB portrayed as weak. Johnson's one major foible was not telling the public what he was doing and essentially taking the US to war without any type of congressional authority or debate.

One can assume all types of "what ifs" and while fun is nothing but pure conjecture. It's like saying, "what if Superman had laneded in Germany rather than American in WWII." Would he have become a nazi? Likewise, was Truman wrong in firing McCarthur even though it was an unpopular thing to do? Our 2 top generals Bradley and Marshall seemed to think it was a right decision which prevented WWIII. Others think it prolonged communism for 50 years. Heck, but for fifo, I would not have been born. We must deal with reality and the present rather than suppositions on how changing the past could have changed the present.

JFK was a cult of personality; not a good president. But for Johnson, none of the civil rights legislation of the 60's would have been passed and gotten through Congress.

You should read Kearns Goodwin's bio on LBJ considered by the WSJ as one of the best presidential bios around. It definately gave me a new perspective on LBJ.

Just my 5 cents.

Cigar Mike Pancier:

You are absolutely right. Someone once said that Lyndon Baines Johnson was the greatest American president for blacks and the poor (I think it was Ralph Abernathy who said it). In any case, I know for a fact that he was the greatest U.S. president for Cuban exiles. Lyndon Johnson was our Statue of Liberty. Thanks to him not all Cubans today are slaves. LBJ signed the original Cuban Adjustment Act of 1966, which didn't require Cubans to set foot on dry land to be free (at the end of their unimaginable travails) but actually saved the refugees' lives on the high seas (at the beginning of their travails) and brought them to freedom here.

As confirmed to Kearns Godwin, LBJ always believed that Castro was responsible for Kennedy's assassination. He no doubt saw the definitive proof which has been concealed from the American public for 46 years. So did Robert Kennedy and his family. This has not, however, stopped the younger generation of Kennedys from visiting Cuba and lionizing their uncle's murderer.

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