Talking 'bout my generation

The Washington Post is hosting a very interesting feature about Cuba on its website. As part of it, they have a live chat with an expert on a specific Cuba issue each day. Yesterday's featured Manuel Roig-Franzia, the Post's Mexico City bureau chief who was in Havana at the time. You can read it here. One question caught my eye:

Venice, Fla.: Candidates from both parties appear to be lining up along the traditional lines of opposing changes in Cuba policy in order to protect their chances of winning votes from the Cuban exile community in Florida. Given that several polls in Miami of Cuban-Americans indicate a broad shift in public opinion toward favoring diplomatic relations and easing of travel restrictions, is it possible that some candidates boldly will offer new alternatives?

Manuel Roig-Franzia: That'll be interesting to watch. I've seen similar polls.

I'll never forget election night 2004, a night I spent in Miami's Little Havana. Outside the venerable restaurant, Versailles, hundreds of Bush supporters waved flags and chanted slogans. Across the street, where John Kerry had taken the confrontational step of placing his local headquarters, were hundreds of Kerry supporters.

On the Versailles side of the street, much of the talk was about confronting Fidel Castro and preserving the embargo. On the other side of the street hardly anyone was talking about Fidel--instead they were talking about the same things most American voters talk about: education, the economy, the war in Iraq.

The crowds on both sides of the street were Cuban-Americans, but the Kerry supporters were much younger. I know that night in Little Havana was a small, unscientific sampling, but it seems to be in line with the conclusions of pollsters and analysts who believe second-generation Cuban-Americans are much less fired up about the embargo and might be more likely to accept a loosening of that policy or ending it all together.

Maybe there is hope after all.

Tomorrow's "expert" is Mark Falcoff of the American Enterprise Institute. You should probably skip that one.