March 21, 2008

Move on over Diaz-Balarts…maybe

If the law of political wishful thinking holds that whole new generations of naturalized Cubans and Cuban Americans are going to go running pell mell to their local Democrat headquarters, a corollary of said law is that this same tsunami of progressivism is going to sweep the Diaz-Balarts and Ros-Lehtinen out of office.

The AP manages to hit both keynotes in this article. First is the generational/class fallacy:

Newer immigrants who arrived on rafts or smugglers' boats and retain family ties to Cuba have less in common with the early wave of elites who fled Cuba by plane in the 1960s and have been stalwarts of the Republican Party. U.S.-born Cuban-Americans still virulently oppose the island's communist government, but many rank bringing it down below other domestic and foreign issues.

I don’t know about anyone else, but I’m tired of this “elitist” claptrap. Yes, I am sure the rich left early on, but so did a lot of other people. I can honestly say that I have never met a member of this Batista “elite,” and I have known many more historic exiles than any purported journalist who insists on perpetuating the myth. Every single Cuban I knew was either working or middle class. I’ll tell you who fled. The guy with the little print shop he had spent his whole life building which was confiscated by the regime, the same with the tailor, the butcher, the baker, and the candlestick maker. Also fleeing were countless numbers who feared communism, who feared their children would be sent to Russia.

Anyway, what? Maybe a million, maybe more, fled in the early decades. Out of a population of 7 million, 1 million constituted an elite? And did every one of the elite flee? And heck, how many were in the middle class, which one would imagine to have been proportionately much larger? Cuba, shockingly enough, had a large middle class. And yes, the generations are different. One has been here longer. And there are real differences, notably family ties. But will that mean wholesale defections from the grand old party? That remains to be seen.

Then there are the current political races. After flattering portraits of Joe Garcia, emphasis on the Mas Canosa (By the way I am still horrified at the Clinton endorsement) connection, and Martinez, gloss over overturned conviction and street brawl, the article implies that the present politicos are running for their lives. It is not until the end that the truth is discreetly understated, namely that the Democrats are throwing truckloads of money at the races because, nationally, they smell Republican blood in the water. And you know what they say about payback.

Over time there will be a gradual shift. But how extensive is open to question. The one factor they all forget in these political calculations is that the vast majority of Cubans and Cuban Americans, young and old, are small businessmen, professionals, and the like. And across the country, regardless of ethnicity, these groups tend to vote….oh, yeah, Republican.

Posted by rsnlk at March 21, 2008 03:51 PM



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Comments

I will have a piece refuting the idea of mass defection from the GOP appearing in Pajamas media shortly. They have been forecasting this generational difference FOR MORE THAN A GENERATION. I found a Herald article predicting it in 1983. Every two years it's more of the same.

One of the big things they never take into account is that people's opinions change over time. Young people become more conservative as they get older (and more likely to vote) and recent arrivals are so recent by the time they gain their citizenship and vote for the first time.

In 2006 Joe Garcia himself did a poll of Cuban Americans and found that 72% of them were Republican with only 11% being Democrat.

Even among those that came after 1980 the percentages weren't much better for the Donkeys. 61% vs. 13%. Of those that came after 1980, 21% were independent.

Unless the Democratic party changes its name to Independent they can't claim any big inroads into the GOP.


Posted by: Henry "Conductor" Gomez [TypeKey Profile Page] at March 21, 2008 04:27 PM

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