Poll: 55% in Miami-Dade say Cuba embargo should end

[Judi Lynn]

Posted on Tuesday, 12.02.08
Poll: 55% in Miami-Dade say Cuba embargo should end

By LIZA GROSS
[e-mail]

In an unprecedented shift in attitude that could affect Cuba policy for the incoming administration of Barack Obama, more than one out of every two Miami-Dade Cuban Americans think the U.S. trade embargo against Cuba should end, according to a new poll released Tuesday.

According to the poll, conducted by Florida International University's Institute for Public Opinion Research and funded by the Washington-based Brookings Institution and Cuba Study Group, 55 percent favor discontinuing the trade embargo imposed in 1962 against the island nation. Sixty-five percent of those polled also favor reestablishing diplomatic relations with Cuba.

The results -- particularly as it relates to the embargo -- represents a continuing shift in attitudes by Miami-Dade Cuban Americans and reflects a generational rift between those who arrived in the United States in the 1960s and those who came in the 1980s or later.

The embargo question has been consistent since FIU began conducting the poll in 1991. Beginning in 1997, results showed a gradual decrease of support for maintaining the embargo. But this year's poll is the first that shows a majority of those surveyed favor lifting it. In 2007, 42 percent of those queried were in favor of ending the trade ban.

''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.

More:
http://www.miamiherald.com/news/miami-dade/breaking-news/story/796455.html

[Billy Burnett]

1. Strange that they voted for Ros and the Diaz brothers, isn't it?

A majority wants the embargo lifted but yet they vote for the major proponents of the embargo.

What a crazy F-ed up place this is. :crazy:

[Judi Lynn]

2. The group-think power seems to have deep roots, doesn't it?

Saw Ros-Lehtinen on Bill Mahr's show on HBO, and she demurely smiled as she pounded home the fact she won by a very comfortable margin.

I think people are afraid of these monsters, considering their ties to genuine mass-murdering monsters, who wouldn't think twice about killing ANYONE whose political views they didn't like. "Killing," in their case ALWAYS has meant safe attacks on completely helpless people who are truly unarmed, and unsuspecting, like the children on that Cubana airliner, sailing through the air, imagining themselves completely safe when the CANF-sponsored bombers blew them all up.

Their kind is BIG on attacking the defenseless, the unprepared, the non-warriors. Cuts down on risks to themselves, you know. Car bombs, bombs placed inside buildings, detonated when the bombers are safely far from any chance of injury themselves.

Their kind is exactly the same people who turned Miami into what the FBI designated as "America's Terror Capital." I'm sure the memories of great Miami citizens like Emilio Milián, who publicly called for an end to the violence in Miami, as he lay without his legs in the street of Miami after they bombed his car for him, are still very deeply imprinted in the minds of citizens who will ALWAYS go out of their way to keep a low profile, and make sure that if anyone asks them for whom did they vote, there'll be no chance they would think they detected they were lying! Too much at stake for most folks to take the chance when you're surrounded by murderers.