Political Pragmatism and Strategic Realignment
in the 1996 Election: Cuban-Americans in Florida
The 1996 election, more than any other to date, may come to be viewed as a harbinger of enhanced cooperation among Cuban-Americans and other Latino groups in terms of the fashioning of political agendas that are in some important respects unified. Notwithstanding the overall "mixed message" derived from interpreting the role played by Latino voters in the 1996 election (see Chapter 1), three particularly important observations stand as indicators of the potential for greater political convergence among Cubans and other Latino groups on at least some significant points of domestic policy. First, while still casting a very slight plurality of their votes for Republican candidate Bob Dole, far more Cuban-Americans voted Democratic in the 1996 race than in any previous presidential election. While not to be interpreted as the beginnings of a traditional realignment of group interests around a different party, Cuban-American voters in Florida were not nearly as at variance with other Latino voters in the casting of their ballots as has been evident in previous elections (Seib 1996).
Second, the national political dialogue on immigration and welfare reform, as well as recent state initiatives that resulted in an "English as official language" amendment to the state constitution and an attempt (presently stalled) to get a "shadow" Proposition 187 initiative on the state ballot, has for the first time awakened many Cuban-Americans to the extent to which changes in the structure of domestic policy, and changes in the substance and tone of the national political dialogue threaten their status and security. In response, although issues particular to U.S. policy toward Cuba remain a central focus in the Cuban community, at both mass and elite levels, the agenda is broadening. The Cuban American National Foundation (CANF) has announced that for the first time in its history it will take on issues not directly linked to Cuba and lobby on behalf of immigrants facing cuts in social programs (Balmaseda 1997).
Finally, while the calls for immigration and welfare reform have by no means been entirely "party specific," even some moderate Republican officials have taken a "hard line" on these issues. As a result, Cuban-American officials have found themselves at odds with elements of their party's national and state leadership. Cuban-American Representatives Ileana Ros-Lehtinen and Lincoln Diaz-Balart were the only Republican members of the U.S. House who did not sign the Gingrich "Contract With America." House colleague and fellow Republican E. Clay Shaw, whose Ft. Lauderdale district neighbors those of Ros-Lehtinen and Diaz-Balart, was a chief architect of the provisions of the welfare reform bill that withholds benefits from resident non-citizens. Most state initiatives either symbolically or substantively aimed at containing or rolling back immigrant gains have also generally had Republican sponsorship -- testing the strong symbiotic relationship that has existed between the Republican party and Cuban-Americans since 1980.
Although we do not in the near term anticipate any significant movement by Cubans away from a party that has proven to be so utilitarian in serving their political interests, we do acknowledge, a) a history in which prior to 1980 more Cuban-Americans registered as Democrats than Republicans, b) a track record of party switching over time (from Democrat to Republican), and c) a tendency for Cuban officials to vote more strategically than along partisan lines when it comes to substantive issues of concern to their constituents (Warren 1997; Stack and Warren 1990; Warren and Stack 1986). Instances of such pragmatism (especially when associated with the content of domestic public policy, as opposed to the more impassioned responses to the symbolic and substantive dimensions of U.S. - Cuba policy), constitute the basis for our seeing the potential for issue-specific or strategic realignment by Cuban-Americans across policy issues of concern to Latinos in general. Making sense of political phenomena such as those described above in the context of a more thorough analysis of the election results and the specific role played by Florida's Hispanics (the preferred local term), stands as the primary objective of this chapter.
CUBAN-AMERICANS AND LATINO POLITICS
In the preceding volume of this series of analyses on the role of Latinos in national and state elections (de la Garza and DeSipio 1992, 1996), we observed that "ambiguity continues to characterize the debate about whether there is a Latino politics in the United States that is both identifiable and separable from the politics of other groups or from that of the nation as a whole" (Moreno and Warren 1996, p. 169). While such indefiniteness continues to be apparent in the literature, the dialogue continues, and quite apart from whether we are closer to consensus on such questions, certainly much is learned along the way -- not only about the diversity and varied politics of the Latino population -- but also about issues of group identity, adaptation, power, and political behavior in general (DeSipio 1996; Fox 1996; Oboler 1995; Vichot 1995; Garcia 1988; Totti 1987; Padilla 1985).
In the context of such ambiguity, the question of where the Cuban-American political experience "fits" has been particularly problematic. As a group, Cubans have often been viewed or have self-identified as being different from, if not at odds with Mexican Americans, Puerto Ricans, and many other Latinos in the U.S. (de la Garza, et al., 1992). As one pair of observers noted, "Cubans are different. Just ask them" (Stepick and Grenier 1993, p.79). However, while remaining mindful of schisms, we also need to weigh the potential for the emergence of a policy agenda that portends to become a catalyst for greater intraethnic or panethnic Latino political mobilization. Such an agenda would need to transcend those unifying factors most frequently ascribed to Latinos,(1) and more fully address whether Latino groups can begin to occupy a political common ground rooted in shared domestic political experiences and interests.
Though Cuban-American politics has often been viewed as anomalous to that of other Latino groups, some more recent accounts of Cuban-American social, political, and economic life have contributed substantially to our understanding of the community's diversity. In the process these analyses caution us that while there will always remain unique dimensions to the story of any group, we risk much if we too blindly accept the notions of Cuban homogeneity and separateness from the diverse experiences and political interests of other Latino groups (Croucher 1997; Garcia 1996). As Croucher has argued (p. 103):
Much of the public discourse on Cuban immigration, whether it emanates from the immigrants themselves or from the society at large, paints a portrait of Cubans in the United States as an economically powerful, politically united, and culturally homogeneous ethnic group. Neither this image nor many of the assumptions upon which it is based is well grounded in empirical reality. The Cuban population in the United States represents a wide range of socioeconomic, cultural, and political backgrounds, a variety of distinct immigration experiences, and substantial intragroup cleavage and conflict. Furthermore, where there is evidence of a cohesive Cuban-American ethnicity, its content is not static.
Whether "empirical reality" ever intrudes upon the commonly held perceptions about Florida's Cuban community or not, the 1996 election results and the continuing dialogue regarding those public policy issues of concern to many Latinos may force reevaluation of prevailing assumptions about Cuban-American politics, and also prompt a reconsideration of the contention that Cuban political activity is atypical in the context of the extended Latino population.
HISPANICS IN FLORIDA: A DEMOGRAPHIC PROFILE
Florida's Hispanic population has continued to grow in both actual and proportional terms, increasing from approximately 860,000, or 8.9 percent of the total in 1980, to 2,015,000, or 14.2 percent of the total state population of 14,166,000 in 1995. The rate of growth of the Hispanic population has been approximately three times that of the state population as a whole, and most demographers have now concluded that Hispanics have surpassed African Americans as the largest ethnic or racial minority group in Florida. In real terms, the Hispanic population grew by over 134 percent from 1980 to 1995, and given the tendency for the census to underestimate urban, minority, and immigrant populations, such figures are likely still conservative.
(Table 1 About Here)
Among Florida's metropolitan areas with significant minority populations, Dade County (coterminous with metropolitan Miami) stands out most dramatically. Dade has by far the largest population of any county in the state -- 2,090,000 as of 1995 (see Table 3). Dade also has the largest concentration of Hispanics of any county in the state and is the largest county in the country with a Hispanic majority, having more than 1,100,000 Latin residents by recent local estimates. However, while such dramatic numbers dwarf those of any of Florida's other 66 counties, there is an increasing trend of considerable numbers of Hispanics settling in other parts of the state. As of 1990, almost a quarter of a million Latins lived in Broward (metropolitan Ft. Lauderdale) and Hillsborough (metropolitan Tampa) counties, and Hispanics constituted 23 percent or more of the total populations in the rural counties of Hardee, Hendry, and Osceola. The rate of Hispanic population growth in these areas likely represents a portent of things to come for many parts of Florida. Similarly, the internationalization of the state's Hispanic population reflects the extent to which other Hispanic nationalities constitute a growing proportion of the total. As shown in Table 1, the 1990 census estimated that a majority of the state's Hispanics were not Cuban, but rather of Puerto Rican, Mexican, or "other" Hispanic origin.
Indicators of demographic change are also evident within Dade County's Hispanic population. Although large-scale Cuban immigration to Miami began some 38 years ago and U.S. born Hispanics are now a significant part of the local population (Hill and Moreno 1996), continued immigration from throughout Latin America and the Caribbean means that still close to 50 percent of the overall population of Dade County is foreign born, as are almost three out of four Cuban-Americans (Boswell 1994a). Moreover, given that the growing non-Cuban segment of the county's Hispanic population originates from so many countries, with no one group other than Cubans constituting more than eight percent of the total, one must sometimes qualify the use of opaque labels with more specific mention of the particular Hispanic national group to which one refers.
(Table 2 About Here)
As Table 3 indicates, the rapid demographic change in Dade County is a post-1960 phenomenon. Precipitated by the Cuban Revolution and the resultant influx of refugees, an emergent Cuban enclave combined with the rapid penetration of international capital into the local economy. The Cuban presence then had a multiplier effect on the influx of additional refugees and immigrants from throughout the hemisphere (Portes and Stepick, 1993). Thus Cubans, the Hispanic group still almost singularly associated with Miami in the popular consciousness, are now estimated to make up slightly less than 60 percent of Miami's Latin population -- a decline of more than 10 percent since 1980.
However, whether one's focus is on Dade County or the state of Florida at large, as of yet, this growing diversity of the Hispanic population has not manifested itself in politically significant ways. For that to occur, one or more of the following three preconditions would have to be met. First, there would need to be evidence of increased rates of citizenship among non-Cuban Hispanics. For some groups, such as Nicaraguans, that step would also necessarily involve resolution of their immigration status, which for many has remained in limbo. Second, there would need to be indications of political mobilization within and across those same groups. Finally, such mobilization would need to result in either the active assertion of an alternative political agenda to that offered by the Cuban-American leadership, or evidence of political convergence among Cuban and non-Cuban Hispanics in the promotion of a common agenda. In the wake of the 1996 election, and various policy initiatives that are of particular concern to many Latinos, we may yet see evidence of change with regard to all three of the above criteria. However, no empirical data exists at this time to support such observations, and until such time, our operating assumption for the foregoing analysis is that the Cuban-American population, especially that centered in Dade County, continues to be the defining force with regard to issues of Hispanic political participation and influence over elections and policy in Florida. To that extent, in some of the following data analysis, we rely on election results from Dade County precincts that have large majorities of Hispanic registered voters, and that are also disproportionately Cuban.
(Table 3 About Here)
THE PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGN
In the 1992 campaign for the presidency, Bill Clinton lost Florida. The Democratic nominee had also demonstrated that he possessed no "coat-tails" in the state, and was therefore unable to stall the emergent Republican majority in Florida's U.S. House delegation, as well as in both houses of the state legislature. Moreover, unlike other states with significant Latino populations, Clinton had failed to win Florida's Hispanic vote, attracting only about 22 percent of the vote in the predominantly Cuban-American precincts of Dade County. Still, victory was proclaimed. In 1992, the Clinton campaign had not only made Florida a truly competitive state for the Democratic nominee for the first time since 1976, but it had also effectively employed a multi-strategy approach that targeted diverse constituencies across the state. In the process, Clinton forced George Bush to pour campaign resources into what should have been a "safe state" for the Republicans, given the precedents of the 1980, 1984, and 1988 GOP landslides. Bush's margin of victory over Michael Dukakis in 1988 was almost one million votes. In 1992, against Clinton, that margin plunged more than 90 percent to fewer than eighty-six thousand votes.
Among the key constituencies targeted in 1992 by the Clinton strategists were Cuban-Americans -- by far the most significant Latino voting bloc in the state, and a group that had demonstrated the capacity to serve as a critical swing vote in closely contested state-wide races (Moreno and Warren 1992, 1996). Since 1980, Cuban voters had also repeatedly exhibited a loyalty to the Republican party that was almost on a par with the traditional support shown by African-Americans for the Democratic party. Clinton's winning 22 percent of the Cuban-American vote in 1992 had fallen short of the campaign's highest expectations, but constituted a new "high water mark" for a Democratic presidential candidate (Moreno and Warren, 1996). That some gains had been realized also demonstrated that the stereotype of a highly partisan, ideologically rigid Cuban constituency, totally resistant to Democratic inroads, could not to be accepted at face value. Beyond winning votes, the Clinton campaign also demonstrated the ability to build an organization within the Cuban community, court elite support (or, as with the Cuban American National Foundation, at least mute vocal opposition), and raise money. Thus, the focus on Cuban-American voters proved to be a salient element of a two-sided political equation that sought to at once minimize the potential damage of an opposition constituency, while optimizing the benefits of more active supporters. It also carried significant symbolic weight, in effect proclaiming that the Clinton campaign was not willing to concede any constituency, no matter how traditionally Republican.
As applied to the 1996 race, the results of a very similar Clinton strategy proved even more dramatic. Florida became the biggest state to join the Democratic "win" column in 1996 -- representing only the second Democratic victory in the state out of the last eight presidential contests. Of the constituencies targeted by the Clinton campaign in 1996, no results offered a bigger surprise than the Cuban-American vote. For the first time since being acknowledged as an important and coherent force in state elections in 1980, Cubans gave the Democratic candidate a very significant portion of their vote. Exit polls showed only 46 percent of Florida's Hispanics voted for Bob Dole, compared to the traditional five or six to one advantage enjoyed by past Republican presidential candidates. President Bill Clinton's 42 percent of the Hispanic vote represented a 91 percent increase over the benchmark 1992 results (Politics Now 1996; Fiedler 1996b).
(Table 4 About Here)
While, the defection of Hispanic voters from the Republicans was not in itself the decisive factor in Clinton's victory in Florida, it did contribute to the break-up of the state's Republican coalition. The Republicans have been able to dominate presidential politics in the state since the late 1960's, combining support from conservative white southerners, midwest retirees, middle class suburbanites, and increasingly Cuban-Americans. The inroads the Clinton campaign made into this coalition gave the President a 302,000 vote margin of victory. Strategically Clinton was able to achieve victory over Dole by appealing to groups that often cut across traditional Republican constituencies, aiming their campaign at women, the elderly, and Hispanics. The gender gap in Florida was 11 percent, with Clinton receiving 52 percent of the women's vote and Dole only 41 percent. The gap was even evident among middle class white women (the so-called "soccer moms"), who in recent past elections had been more inclined to vote Republican. This group voted 48 percent to 45 percent in favor of Clinton (Voter News Service 1996). Clinton also benefited from the votes of the state's large elderly population. Among Floridians over 65 years of age he soundly defeated his Republican challenger 56 percent to 40 percent. In Broward and Palm Beach counties, home to numerous large retirement communities, Clinton beat Dole by a two-to-one margin. This strong showing among the elderly and women reduced the critical significance of the Hispanic vote, which had been decisive in Bush's Florida victory in 1992 (Moreno and Warren 1996). Although Florida's Latino voters, who cast approximately 11 percent of the votes, did not determine the outcome of the election in the state, their defection underscored the growing problems faced by both the Republican ticket and the national party in appealing to Hispanic voters (Voter News Service 1996).
A review of the votes of predominantly Cuban-American precincts in Dade County underscores how poor the Dole showing was. Even in the most lopsided Republican stronghold precincts of Hialeah and Little Havana, which Bush and Reagan were sometimes able to carry by margins as high as nine to one, Dole barely received 60 percent of the vote. In the more middle class, and only slightly less Hispanic precincts of Concord and West Kendall, Clinton either cut further into or turned the Dole lead on its head (see Table 5). This poor showing by Dole among Dade County's most reliable Republican voters enabled Clinton to win in Dade by a margin of more than 100,000 votes -- an increase of more than 80,000 votes, or 500 percent over his 1992 margin of victory.
(Table Five About Here)
The dramatic shift in the Cuban vote raises key questions as to whether Hispanic voters were merely cool to Dole's candidacy, or whether the vote signaled a more fundamental change in the behavior of the Cuban-American voting bloc. Our interpretation of the results, and of the events leading up to the general election, especially the Florida primary, is that there are elements of truth in both arguments.
The Republican Primary
Bob Dole's poor showing among Hispanic voters in Florida is ironic given that most members of the Cuban-American political establishment were early supporters in his bid for the Republican nomination. Florida's large population, relatively high levels of Republican registration, and demographic diversity made it an important state for winning delegates, as well as a key testing-ground for the campaign's ability to assemble and consolidate a broad coalition of intra-party support. Emergent party factions were well represented in the state, encompassing religious and social conservatives, the suburban middle-class, and metropolitan business interests. Thus, as of the beginning of the primary season, Florida was of critical strategic importance for the Dole camp. In various respects its importance was viewed by many as being even greater with regard to the nominating process than the general election campaign. Given that the GOP had won Florida in every presidential general election since 1976, it was still considered a reasonably safe state for Republicans, even in the face of the close race in 1992.
As an important preliminary to Florida's formal "Super Tuesday" primary to be held on March 12, 1996, the state GOP had also scheduled a state convention and "straw vote" for November 18, 1995. The event, known as Presidency III, was the third time a non-binding Florida convention had helped winnow the field of GOP presidential candidates. While the convention did not formally select any delegates to the national convention, it was the first major event in the Republican nominating process and was an especially important indicator of who state party leaders and activists were inclined to support. The event's capstone was a "straw poll" of delegates selected from each county, and given that it would receive national attention, the vote was viewed as playing an important role in the early political maneuvering known as the "invisible primary."
Cuban-American officials and activists played an especially significant part in the "straw vote," given that they dominated the Dade delegation, the state's largest, at the Presidency III convention. Dade County's importance, and by implication the importance of the Cuban-American contingent, was also illuminated when all three of the major GOP presidential candidates (Lamar Alexander, Bob Dole, and Phil Gramm) attended the Dade County delegate selection meeting. At the meeting, Dole was clearly the choice of the Cuban-American political establishment in Dade, given that both U.S. House members, Lincoln Diaz-Balart and Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, signed on as early supporters of his candidacy. Dole also had the support of most Cuban-American elected officials at the state and local level, including all three Cuban state senators (Roberto Casas, Mario Diaz-Balart, and Alberto Gutman), and six out of the nine Cuban members of the State House of Representatives (Bruno Barreiro, Alex Diaz de la Portilla, Rudy Garcia, Jorge Rodriguez-Chomat, Luis Rojas, and Carlos Valdez).
Notwithstanding Dole's effectiveness in lining up political endorsements from Cuban-American elected officials, the other major GOP candidates also spent a great deal of time and effort trying to win over Cuban support prior to the Presidency III straw vote. Texas Senator Phil Gramm appealed to Cuban delegates at Presidency III by issuing a demand that Cuban dictator Fidel Castro be barred from coming to the United States for the United Nation's 50th anniversary in New York. Gramm stated at one gathering, "The only purpose that we should allow Fidel Castro into America for is to put him in prison or to hang him. And frankly I believe the people of Cuba should have first right to exercise either or both of those options." Gramm's anti-Castro rhetoric illustrated his effort to compete with Dole and not be outdone by any rival in appealing to Cuban exile voters. Gramm also criticized Dole's call for national legislation to make English the official language, a measure viewed as insulting and insidious by many in the Cuban-American community who had fought against and lost the 1988 campaign to amend the Florida constitution, making English the official language of the state. Gramm told Cuban delegates to Presidency III, "I don't think it is the duty of the federal government to tell any city what language they should print their signs in" (Fiedler 1995).
Lamar Alexander ran a less bellicose, but none the less concerted campaign aimed at winning support from Dade's representatives to the convention, and was successful in picking up the endorsement of moderate Cuban-American leaders, such as Republican activist and fund-raiser Carlos Salman, and State Representatives Alex Villalobos, Luis Morse, and Carlos Lacasa. By the time of the state convention, however, Dole had been able to cultivate commitments of support from most of Cuban-American officialdom. Thus, at Presidency III, Dole ended up receiving his strongest support from Dade County, which gave him 141 delegate votes, Gramm 84 and Alexander 46 (Gibson 1995). This strong showing proved decisive for Dole, who in the end was only able to win a plurality victory at Presidency III, receiving support from 33 percent of the delegates. Gramm and Alexander followed with 26 percent and 23 percent of the delegate votes respectively. Despite Dole's slim margin of victory, he had minimally accomplished his core objective of maintaining his front-runner status as the candidates entered the formal primary season.
A January 22-23, 1996 Mason-Dixon poll confirmed Dole's lead among likely Republican Florida primary voters as well, showing Dole with 37 percent of the vote in an otherwise crowded field. His nearest rival in the poll was Steve Forbes, with a 16 percent showing -- a full 21 percentage points behind Dole. As he would in other states, Forbes had seemingly come from nowhere to take second place in the polls. His well financed media campaign which either remained focused on issues related to the economy and government fiscal policy, or which attacked Dole outright, had enabled Forbes to jump ahead of both Gramm and Alexander (who respectively polled 13 percent and 6 percent of likely Republican voters). Little effort was made by Forbes to specifically court Florida's Hispanic vote beyond a few instances of de rigueur Castro bashing. As a "free-trader" without peer, many were also doubtful that Forbes could ever sincerely embrace the U.S. embargo against Cuba, much less seek to further tighten it through the pending Helms-Burton bill.
By the time of the March 12 primary, Gramm and Alexander had dropped out of the race due to disappointing showings in the early primary contests. Forbes continued his media campaign, and Buchanan had been buoyed by his win in New Hampshire. The Buchanan campaign faced some particularly troublesome public relations problems where the Cuban-American vote was concerned. On the one hand, none of the other candidates could beat Buchanan at anti-Communist/anti-Castro rhetoric. Like other Republican candidates, he was also pointedly critical of Clinton's Cuba policy, which at the time of the 1994 Guantanamo refugee influx had reversed the long-standing practice of admitting any Cuban who reached U.S. soil, and now allowed for the return of refugees to Cuba. At the same time, Buchanan's national campaign was largely premised upon capitalizing on white working-class disaffection with the economy, immigration policy, affirmative action, language issues, and social welfare policy. Behind the scenes, Buchanan's campaign operatives would make a case for "Cuban exceptionalism," viewing them as political refugees who were by definition welcome in the U.S. However, even with its elements of economic populism combined with anti-Castro sentiments, there was no misinterpreting the overall message of the campaign. In the end, Buchanan drew precious little support from Hispanic voters, and no major Cuban-American officials would even welcome him on his swings through Florida, much less endorse him.
As of March 3, Dole had seen virtually no improvement in his standing in the polls over the preceding six weeks, still showing support from 37 percent of the likely voters. Forbes, however, had gained substantially, pulling to within 8 points of Dole, with 29 percent of those polled supporting him. Buchanan polled a distant third with 18 percent naming him as their top choice for the nomination. However, in just the couple weeks prior to Super Tuesday, Dole's support in other states had finally reached the critical mass necessary to make him look like the inevitable Republican nominee. Dole had swept the South Carolina, Georgia, and New York primaries, giving him the momentum going into Florida that had been absent since the New Hampshire loss.
In the Florida vote, Dole now easily defeated his remaining rivals for the nomination winning 57 percent of the vote statewide, compared to 20 percent for Forbes and 18 percent for Buchanan. Again, Dole's victory was aided by his impressive showing in Dade County, especially among Latin Republicans who gave him 81 percent of their vote, compared to nine percent for Buchanan, and six percent for Forbes. Less than three weeks prior to the primary, Dole had also attempted to capitalize on the February 24 shoot-down of two private Hermanos el Rescate (Brothers to the Rescue) planes, which were ostensibly on patrol in the Caribbean, searching for rafters. While such searches and other forms of benign refugee assistance were the routine functions of the organization, some Brothers to the Rescue flights had admittedly intruded upon Cuban air space. At least one earlier flight, which was videotaped and repeatedly broadcast on Miami television, showed Hermanos el Rescate pilots dumping leaflets on Havana, urging people to oppose the Castro regime. The shooting down of the planes, however, neither of which was found to have entered Cuban air space, and the safe return of a third plane piloted by the organization's leader, that had been found to have slightly infiltrated Cuban territory, received massive attention in south Florida, and was roundly condemned. The incident presented itself as an opportunity for candidate Dole to further consolidate his status with Cuban Republicans. It also afforded Dole the occasion to turn more of his attention to the upcoming campaign against Clinton. Specifically, Dole made a case that due to Clinton's conflicted and self-contradictory policy toward Cuba, that the President "bore some responsibility" for the February 24 incident -- that, in fact, Cuba had received too many mixed messages regarding U.S. resolve in its opposition to the Castro government. Dole went on to proclaim during a Little Havana campaign stop that, "In a Dole administration, we will not cozy up to Castro."
The General Election
By the end of the primary season, Dole seemed positioned to win support from Cuban-Americans in the general election that would be on a par with that provided his Republican predecessors over the last four presidential elections. Dole had drawn substantial elite support from Cuban officialdom at the Presidency III convention and straw poll. He had also demonstrated that as measured against the other Republican contenders in 1996, he was far and away the preferred candidate of rank and file Hispanic Republicans. In a "head-to-head" contest against the President, a February 17, 1996 public opinion poll had also shown Dole leading Clinton by at least 35 percentage points among Dade's Hispanics -- 53 percent to 16 percent. The only uncertainty or cause for concern in the poll results was the fairly high number of "undecideds." While the poll showed Dole leading Clinton by better than three to one among Hispanics, there were still substantial numbers of voters who might swing either way, especially given that Perot's third party candidacy possessed neither salience nor substance for the vast majority of Hispanic voters.
The Dole lead also needed to be measured against the fact that among many Republicans in general, and among Cuban-Americans in particular, support for Dole was often luke warm. A growing suspicion was that Dole was avoidant of too much public contact with Hispanics in Florida, fearful that it might undermine his hard line on immigrant and affirmative action issues in California and other border states. While the Dole camp also quietly communicated the line of "Cuban exceptionalism" on immigration issues, he seemed neither adept at nor politically inclined to do the kind of visible, neighborhood-based campaigning in Miami that had worked so well for Reagan and Bush in consolidating their popularity.
Consistent with his 1992 strategy to concede no constituency to the Republicans, the Clinton campaign acted decisively in attempting to first contain, and then chip away at Dole's early lead among Cuban-American voters. Clinton had damaged his status with many in the exile community when in 1994 he altered long-standing policy and practice with regard to the treatment of Cuban refugees. As a result of the Guantanamo incident, during which tens of thousands of Cubans hoping to receive asylum were permitted to enter the U.S. base in Cuba, Clinton decided that while the Guantanamo refugees would be gradually admitted, in the future, Cubans making it to U.S. soil would no longer be automatically admitted. Their applications for asylum would be reviewed individually. The Coast Guard would also have authority to return refugees picked up at sea to Cuba. While the change in policy had been made with the approval of the Cuban American National Foundation, the Cuban community was deeply divided over the administration's actions, spawning a week of sporadic street protests in Miami. Congressman Lincoln Diaz-Balart was also arrested along with a Dade County Commissioner in a modest act of civil disobedience, for picketing in front of the White House in protest of the change in policy. In responding to such discontent, Clinton's 1996 campaign focused on two issues critically important to the Cuban bloc. First, in the wake of the change in Cuban refugee policy, Clinton needed to demonstrate new resolve vis-a-vis the Castro regime. Second, the Clinton camp sought to exploit an opportunity provided in the convergence of a number of "wedge" social issues which many Republicans were now promoting.
Since the Republican congressional victories in 1994, immigration policy, policy toward immigrants already in the U.S., social welfare policy, and affirmative action had all become rhetorically and substantively intertwined. The Gingrich Contract With America, Proposition 187, various "official English" initiatives at the state and national levels, California Governor Pete Wilson's gubernatorial and presidential campaigns, the Buchanan campaign and its proposal for a freeze on all new immigration, and the welfare reform initiatives pending in Congress in 1996 all aided in defining the parameters of the Republican social agenda as it related to immigrant groups. Dole's personal positions in favor of official English, in opposition to affirmative action, and his general support for significant tightening of immigration and welfare policy, sought to politically capitalize on the popularity of these issues among many traditional non-Hispanic white constituencies -- especially in states like California. At the same time, Dole wanted his support for such initiatives to be perceived as more nuanced and moderate than was evident with the Buchanan and social conservative factions of the party. However, by the time of the Republican national convention, in a move intended to placate the social and religious conservatives, the Dole campaign gave that segment of the party a strong hand in drafting the platform -- the substance of which only added to the GOP's growing xenophobic image. The platform not only contained provisions that called for official English and for ending federal welfare benefits for non-citizens, but it also contained a plank that called for the denial of U.S. citizenship to the children of illegal aliens born in the U.S.
Cuban voters were also especially wary of the 1996 Republican sponsored welfare bill. This legislation contained provisions that denied many federal benefits, including Supplemental Security Income (SSI) and Food Stamps, to resident non-citizens. The bill was viewed locally has having especially damaging implications for Cuban immigrants, given their greater than average proportion of elderly and disabled people in comparison to most recently arrived immigrant groups. It was estimated by Florida state agencies that under the legislation's requirements over 40,000 people could lose benefits in Dade County alone. The two Republicans who did not support the legislation were again the Cuban-American representatives from Miami. Diaz-Balart explained his position in the following terms, "I felt so strongly about the specific aspects of welfare reform that denied benefits to legal immigrants, that I did not want to accept the whole package because of that item" (De Cordoba 1996.). Diaz-Balart found Republican support to make English the official language of the United States equally offensive. In a heated debate with House Speaker Newt Gingrich, he maintained that parts of the proposed bill constituted "aggression against linguistic minorities" and were "anti-democratic." (De Cordoba 1996).
The opportunity that the Clinton campaign was now prepared to capitalize on, was to depict the various Republican initiatives as "draconian," while at the same time still acknowledging the need for change across each of these policy areas. The appointment of Barbara Jordan's commission on immigration reform, the promise going back to the 1992 campaign to "end welfare as we know it," the tightening of U.S. policy toward Cuban refugees, the expressed commitment to the principle of affirmative action while criticizing the mechanics of its implementation -- all stood as examples of Clinton's capacity to stake out political ground on both sides of the respective initiatives. However, in the face of the Republicans now taking a more strident lead on many such issues, Clinton was in a position to strategically support and take credit for elements of some policies, while also representing himself as the last best hope in fending off those elements most directly threatening to key constituencies. The classic example of such a strategy is seen in the administration's handling of the welfare reform bill that Clinton signed just prior to the Democratic national convention. Having signed the Republican bill, the administration proceeded to campaign on the need to re-elect the President so that he could lead the campaign to reform portions of it -- especially those parts that applied to non-citizens.
With regard to plotting a tougher line on Cuba, the shooting down of the Hermanos el Rescate planes also provided the President an opportunity to show that he was tough on Castro. After the incident, the White House reversed its previous opposition to the Helms-Burton bill, which called for the tightening of the long standing U.S. economic embargo against Cuba. Its provisions also allowed United States citizens, including naturalized Cubans, to sue foreign companies that operated on confiscated Cuban properties, and permitted the banning from U.S. soil of foreign businessmen who invested in confiscated properties on the island. In shifting his position to one of support for the legislation, Clinton over-ruled objections from his own State Department personnel who argued that Helms-Burton was counterproductive given that it allowed Castro to portray Washington as the enemy of the Cuban people, and because its extra-territorial provisions damaged U.S. relations with those allies who had closer economic relations with Cuba.
Clinton also benefitted from the tough talk and subsequent visit to Miami of then U.N. Ambassador Madeline Albright. In what has no doubt been Albright's most quoted statement to date, the Ambassador played off of the intercepted radio transmission of one of the Cuban airforce pilots who participated in the shooting down of the two civilian airplanes. At a press conference condemning the attack, her anger palpable, Albright said of the shoot-down, "This is not cojones. This is cowardice." The President further reassured Cuban voters of his sensitivity to their concerns by supporting the transfer of the administrative office in control of Radio and T.V. Marti from Washington to Miami. The moving of the office had long been advocated by the Cuban American National Foundation which felt that the Miami community would have more influence over the office's operation and the content of programming if the stations were based in South Florida. Collectively, such actions did much to atone for the administration's earlier shift on refugee policy. Thus, given the lack of deeply rooted enthusiasm for Dole among Cuban-Americans, his own reluctance to actively court the Cuban vote, and Clinton's dexterity in courting the vote across various strategic fronts, the political situation was ripe for an upset.
Clinton's nation-wide effort to appeal to Hispanic voters was to have been reinforced by the activities of the Adelante Con Clinton/Gore '96 organization. Launched in 17 states on July 27, 1996, the President, along with Housing and Urban Development secretary Henry Cisneros and Transportation secretary Federico Pena, held a conference call with more than 1,000 Latino leaders and activists. The event was used to announce the formation of steering committees for each state involved in the Latino outreach campaign. In Florida, as underscored in chapter one, the state committee's activity did not prove to be important to the coordination and strategy of the actual campaign to win Hispanic votes. The feeling was that the normal campaign mechanisms of the state Democratic party and the President's conciliatory actions vis-a-vis the Cuban community were already making progress in winning over Hispanic voters. Though more active in other states, the existence of Adelante Con Clinton/Gore '96 proved more symbolic than substantive in Florida. The state organization's efforts received virtually no media attention in Florida, and its 50 member steering committee was little more than a list of prominent Hispanic Democrats who had played roles in fundraising and party building, or who held elected or appointed office.
At a symbolic level, the organization's steering committee was reflective of the growing geographic and national diversity of Florida's Latino population. Of the 50 members, 18 (36 percent) were from Dade County, including some of the state's most prominent Cuban Democrats: Simon Ferro, who had previously served as the Chairperson of the Florida Democratic party; Paul Cejas, the first Hispanic to win county-wide elected office in Dade, and now one of the wealthiest Hispanic businessmen in the country; and Annie Betancourt, the only Cuban-American Democrat presently serving in the Florida legislature. The county with the second greatest level of representation on the steering committee was Hillsborough, with eight members. The remaining 24 members were disproportionately from the state's other urban counties, and included several members of Puerto Rican, Mexican, and other national backgrounds.
Notwithstanding the growing momentum of the Clinton campaign in Florida, there were still opportunities the Dole campaign might have more effectively exploited. While, Clinton's signing of the Helms-Burton bill was a significant step in mollifying Cuban-American concerns over his U.S.-Cuba policy, Clinton was still not trusted as to his commitment to the law's effective implementation. Polls showed that 75 percent of Cuban-Americans approved of Helms-Burton. It was evident that Clinton's endorsement would not have been forthcoming had it not been for the Hermanos el Rescate incident. Moreover, upon signing the legislation, the President decided to at least temporarily suspend those sections that most antagonized U.S. allies, including the provisions permitting U.S. Citizens to bring law suits against foreign companies that invested in confiscated properties. It was a move roundly criticized in Miami.
However, the Dole campaign showed little inclination to seize upon such opportunities. The Republican candidate's lack of attention to the Cuban vote extended as far as not attending a function held at the Bay of Pigs monument in the heart of Little Havana, even though he was in town, staying at his Miami Beach condominium at the time. Jesse Helms flew in from Washington to serve as the keynote speaker at the rally. One of the few rallies Dole did have in Miami, and this was just shortly prior to election day, was on the campus of Florida International University (FIU). Not only was the event held indoors and attendance controlled, but for entertainment the campaign had country singer Lee Greenwood perform, "I'm Proud to be an American," before a mostly Cuban audience. In similar circumstances, when a significant number of Cubans were anticipated to be in attendance at a campaign event, it was the practice of the Clinton organization to have "Guantanamera" performed, a song with lyrics taken from a poem written by Cuban independence hero Jose Marti, and popularized in the U.S. by innumerable American folk singers.
By June of election year, a poll of Dade County Latins showed President Clinton making significant gains among likely Hispanic voters. The Florida Scientific Survey poll showed him with 31 percent of the county's Hispanic vote, a 15 percent increase over what was shown in the same organization's February 17, 1996 poll. In the same period, the number of Dade Hispanics favoring Dole did not increase at all from slightly more than 50 percent, seeming to suggest that most who had been undecided were now favoring the President.
Adding to the Republicans' woes in Florida was the Dole campaign's decision to increasingly concentrate on California at the expense of other states as the campaign entered the fall months. Campaign strategists reasoned that in Florida, when it came down to election day, that Cubans and other traditionally Republican voters would return to the fold. However, in appealing to those voter sentiments in California that had fueled the Proposition 187 campaign, the Dole organization adopted some of the rhetoric that had also been apparent in Pete Wilson's successful 1994 gubernatorial campaign as well as in his failed bid for the Republican nomination. In fact, Cuban-American members of Congress Diaz-Balart and Ros-Lehtinen ended up personally intervening to convince the Republican National Committee to pull a television advertisement on illegal immigration that was to run in California, featuring film of balseros (Cuban rafters), struggling to paddle across the Straits of Florida.
(Table 6 About Here)
Only when state-wide public opinion polls began to show the President building a significant lead in Florida did the Republican candidates again turn their attention to Miami. Two last minute campaign appearances by the ticket involved the Dole visit to the FIU campus, and a Jack Kemp campaign swing through Hialeah. From the beginning, the Dole camp had kept Kemp in the background and attempted to restrain his proclivity to actively court minority voters. By the time of his October 26 appearance, however, there was nothing to lose. Kemp came to Hialeah just three days after a Clinton meeting with Cuban-American leaders in Little Havana. Speaking in English, with asides uttered in halting Spanish, Kemp twice referred to the President as a mentiroso (liar), in terms of his late and half-hearted support for Helms-Burton. He then took a closing shot at Clinton's shift in Cuban refugee policy, declaring, "No Mas forced repatriations of Cubans seeking freedom across the straits" (Fiedler 1996b). The Kemp speech stood as the most visible and concerted effort made late in the campaign to "shore up" the Cuban vote. It had little effect in the end. By election day, the Clinton campaign had outspent the Republicans in Dade County three-to-one. Little residual enthusiasm from the primaries was evident on the part of Cuban-Americans for the Dole/Kemp ticket. On October 24, just three days prior to the Kemp appearance, and in the immediate wake of a meeting with Clinton in Little Havana, Cuban American National Foundation Chairman Jorge Mas Canosa took to the Spanish language airwaves and summed up what seemed to be the attitude of many. Mas observed that he would "give no better than an average grade" to Clinton on his Cuba policy, but that Dole "hasn't done any better a job on Cuba" (Fiedler 1996a). This strategic distancing from the Republican ticket, the unwillingness to be reassured by the symbolism of anti-Castro rhetoric, and a growing concern with the direction of the Republican domestic agenda all contributed to the erosion of Dole's base of support. Many votes that would have otherwise gone to Dole were being cast for an incumbent President who seemed to merit at best a grade of "C" from many Cuban-Americans, serving as further testament to how much the national party and its candidate had slipped in Florida generally, and among Cuban-Americans in particular.
Little has been said regarding the other 1996 races in Florida given that in all respects other than with regard to the Presidential contest, the results evidenced that this was a classic example of a sustaining election. Republicans continued to make gains in other partisan contests in Florida. No U.S. Senate or other state-wide elections were held given that the bulk of state offices are filled in off-year elections. In Florida's U.S. House races, the Democratic Party's attempt to capitalize on Gingrich's declining popularity had little impact as Republicans maintained their almost two-to-one margin, winning 15 of the 23 seats. Florida's two Hispanic representatives, Lincoln Diaz-Balart and Ileana Ros-Lehtinen were two of only three U.S. House incumbents in Florida who ran unopposed.
In state legislative races the Republican party maintained its majority in the Florida Senate, and for the first time in the twentieth century won a majority of the seats in the Florida House of Representatives -- making Florida the first deep south state with Republican majorities in both state chambers. In the face of continued strength for the Republicans in all of these other arenas, the Dole loss must be viewed as an even more significant occurrence, highlighting the combined damage of a) a candidate for whom enthusiasm never ran high; b) a campaign that was a strategic failure; and c) especially where Hispanics were concerned, the concerns raised by the changing domestic policy agenda. From a strategic point of view, the Clinton campaign was also everything the Dole campaign was not -- showing a deftness at cultivating key constituencies such as retirees and women, while simultaneously cutting into some of Dole's core of support among other groups, including Cuban-Americans.
Conclusions
In the volume from this series of analyses covering the 1992 election, we concluded that the depth of Cuban-American support for George Bush was a "critical" and "perhaps decisive" factor in his winning the state (Moreno and Warren 1996, p. 182). We also noted that Clinton had been more active and more successful in courting Cuban support (at both rank-and-file and elite levels) than had any of his predecessors. By the time of the 1996 campaign many of Florida's Hispanic voters, and Cuban-Americans in particular, were no longer just being courted by the Democratic ticket. They were now caught in a "push-pull" dynamic evident as both parties and their respective candidates staked out ground on a number of sensitive domestic issues. For many Cubans, the Contract with America, the Republican platform, state initiatives like Proposition 187, passage of the 1996 welfare bill excluding non-citizens from many benefits, and Republican leadership on numerous official English and restrictive citizenship initiatives stood as a wake-up call that they were politically vulnerable on the domestic policy front. In such an environment, Cuban-Americans were not only being appealed to more effectively by Democrats, they were now being alienated by important elements of their own party.
To the extent that Cuban-American policy interests had for years been dominated by concerns with U.S.-Cuba relations, there had never been much attention devoted to the extent to which more substantive interests could be compromised through changes in U.S. domestic policy. In the past, the Cuban-American political agenda had never been particularly focused on the expansion of social welfare benefits. By virtue of the special forms of aid and assistance received by many Cuban entrants, and by virtue of relative social and economic success (without wishing to exaggerate its depth or dimensions), the Cuban political agenda actively sought little in the form of new distributive or redistributive domestic policy. Having a strong hand in shaping U.S.-Cuba policy, attaining office and representation at all three levels of government, and being sufficiently engaged politically to be able to fend off or limit the damage of initiatives that seemed to have discriminatory intent, were all ends in-and-of themselves.
In the current political climate, it is the view of a growing number of Cuban-Americans that such complacency regarding domestic policy can no longer be afforded. Having been content with the domestic policy status quo, it has only been in the mid-1990's that Cuban-Americans have been alerted to the extent to which they too have vested interests in domestic policy decisions. "Cuban exceptionalism" with regard to both immigration and domestic policy is increasingly a vestige of the past. Cuban-Americans now have more substantive policy interests in common with other Latino populations than has ever previously been evident. The 1996 election results are the most obvious indication of this in that it reversed the overwhelming support Cubans have shown for the Republican party and its candidates in past elections, and was at the least more proximate to the electoral outcomes evident among Latinos at large.
While, as asserted at the outset of this chapter, calls for policies often viewed as being contrary to immigrant interests have by no means been party specific, Republicans have clearly pushed the agenda hardest. The push continues. As of the time of this writing, bills proposed by Republicans in the 1997 session of the 105th Congress that have important implications for Latinos and other immigrant groups have overwhelmingly sought to further contract social welfare benefits for immigrants, promote official English, and restrict citizenship. Lincoln Diaz-Balart's own modest bill, introduced this session, calls for an amendment to the new welfare bill that would allow disabled permanent resident aliens to continue to receive benefits under the Supplemental Security Income and food stamp programs. His bill currently has 22 cosponsors. Two are Republican, including Ros-Lehtinen, and 20 are Democrats, including Barney Frank, Ron Dellums, Patrick Kennedy, and Henry Waxman. In the face of such developments, Cuban-American officials themselves are in the best position to recognize a political situation that is becoming increasingly ironic, if not self-contradictory. Whether the convergence of these issues and political forces make the 1996 election results a one time strategic deviation from the norm of overwhelming Cuban-American support for Republican candidates, or whether the election marks the beginning of a longer term process of Cuban-Americans being more cognizant of the domestic political agenda and its implications for themselves and other Latino groups, will likely be best viewed from the vantage point of elections held in the year 2000.
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1. Among those factors frequently identified as speaking to commonalities among Latinos, not related to their experience in the U.S., are: a) language, b) some overlap of history and culture, c) proximity of their nations of origin to the U.S., d) the impact of U.S. foreign policies on their nations of origin, and e) the process of immigration itself. Speaking to commonalities once in the U.S., various analysts cite: a) the process of adaptation and acculturation, b) discrimination and generally lower socio-economic status, and c) innumerable contextual factors relative to life in the U.S., such as externally assigned group labels, as well as public policies and other forces that identify Latinos as a singular group. Absent from such unifying factors has been compelling evidence of a stronger internal ("panethnic") sense of common interests along the lines of "partisanship, ideology, or policy preferences" (DeSipio 1996; Hero 1992).