Miami-Dade poll sees shift in opinion over Cuba embargo: A survey of Cuban Americans in Miami-Dade showed that the majority favor a lifting of the trade embargo.

Dec 03, 2008 (The Miami Herald - McClatchy-Tribune Information Services via COMTEX) -- ORCI | Quote | Chart | News | PowerRating -- In an unprecedented shift in attitude that could affect Cuba policy for the incoming administration of Barack Obama, more than one out of two Miami-Dade Cuban Americans think the U.S. trade embargo against Cuba should end, according to a new poll released Tuesday.

The poll, conducted by Florida International University's Institute for Public Opinion Research and funded by the Brookings Institution and the Cuba Study Group, indicates that 55 percent of those polled favor discontinuing the trade embargo imposed in 1962. Sixty-five percent favor reestablishing diplomatic relations with Cuba.

"The poll has an extraordinary historical importance," said Guarione Diaz, president of the Cuban American National Council, a nonpartisan advocacy group in Miami.

The results, particularly as they relate to the embargo, reflect "the fact that the Cuban Americans who were born in the United States or left after 1980 do not have the same vision as those who came in the 60s," Diaz said.

Ninoska Perez, director of the conservative Cuban Liberty Council, dismissed the results.

"I am tired of these polls that mean nothing," she said. "The point is that three Congress members who support the embargo were elected by an overwhelming majority of the people. The reelection of these Congress members tells me that this sample is not a majority. I don't believe this poll."

The embargo question has been consistent since FIU began conducting the poll in 1991. Beginning in 1997, the trend showed a gradual decrease of support for maintaining the embargo. But this year's poll is the first to show a majority in favor of lifting it. In 2007, 42 percent of those polled 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.

Respondents included registered and nonregistered voters.

Support for the embargo remained strong among Cuban-American registered voters. A majority, 56 percent, said they support continuing it.

Carlos Pascual, vice president for Foreign Policy at the centrist Brookings Institution in Washington, said the results indicate a new perspective "in what is going to result in a favorable policy change towards Cuba."

"There is an awareness that change will not come from the outside but from the empowerment and strengthening of the Cuban people so that they can change their own future," he said. "Punishment as a strategy has not been effective."

Pascual said the desire on the part of Cuban Americans to help their relatives on the island means that "family and politics are starting to come together in a way that will affect policy."

The question on reestablishing diplomatic relations with Cuba appears for the first time in this year's poll, which was conducted shortly after the U.S. presidential election. The survey, conducted by phone, measured responses of 800 Cuban Americans who live in Miami-Dade and has a 3.6 percent margin of error.

Pascual said the result in favor of reestablishing diplomatic relations with Cuba will give Obama greater political flexibility domestically as he crafts his Cuba policy, particularly because 52 percent of those polled are Republican.

"The way that Cuban Americans are looking at policy is change through engagement, not isolation. That coincides with Obama's general approach to global affairs and what he has said about Cuba," Pascual said.

The poll also measured attitudes on U.S. travel restrictions to Cuba, which were tightened to reduce the amount of money and goods sent to relatives on the island and limits family visits to once every three years.

Sixty-six percent were in favor of ending current travel restrictions to Cuba for Cuban Americans and 65 percent were in favor of ending current restrictions on remittances to Cuba for Cuban Americans.

Gladwin said that what those polled want "is the government to engage with Cuba and figure this thing out."

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