Clinton fights GOP opponents, family history on Cuba

Clinton fights GOP opponents, family history on Cuba
By Eric Bradner and Dan Merica, CNN
Updated 2351 GMT (0651 HKT) July 31, 2015

Clinton criticizes Bush's 'right to rise' slogan 01:48
Miami, Florida (CNN)Hillary Clinton undid some family history and hit
two of her Republican opponents in their own backyards on Friday as she
called for an end to the Cuba embargo.

The former secretary of state became the first major presidential
candidate to come to the heart of America's Cuban exile community to
make her case that Congress should lift the Cuban embargo.

That wasn't the only reason Clinton picked Miami, though. It's also home
to two top Republican presidential contenders: Bush, the former Florida
governor, and Sen. Marco Rubio. Bush lives nearby, and Rubio teaches a
class at Florida International University -- which hosted Clinton's speech.

The location offered an implicit contrast that Clinton had already made
directly earlier Friday morning, when she and Bush spoke within minutes
of each other at the National Urban League's conference in Fort Lauderdale.

"The real test of a candidates' commitment is not whether we come to
speak," Clinton said, "it is whether we are still around after the
cameras are gone and the votes are counted. It is whether our positions
live up to our rhetoric and too often we see a mismatch between what
some candidates say in venues like this and what they actually do when
they are elected."

RELATED: Hillary Clinton knocks Jeb Bush's 'right to rise' at Urban
League speech

Then, she made the 45-minute drive into Miami to draw a contrast with
Republicans on Cuban policy, saying the future of the U.S.-Cuban
relationship is at stake in the upcoming presidential election.

"We have arrived at a decisive moment. The Cuban people have waited long
enough for progress to come," Clinton said Friday. "Even many
Republicans on Capitol Hill are starting to recognize the urgency of
moving forward. It's time for their leaders to either get on board or
get out of the way."

She called out by name Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and House
Speaker John Boehner, urging the two to "step up and answer the pleas of
the Cuban people."

And then she took a shot at the entire GOP field of presidential
contenders, saying that their support for the embargo will "play right
into the hard-liners' hands. They would reverse the progress we made."

"They have it backwards. Engagement is not a gift to the Castros, it's a
threat to the Castros," Clinton said.

Clinton's position mirrors one President Barack Obama took weeks
earlier, calling for an end to the embargo as he announced the opening
of a U.S. embassy in Havana.

RELATED: Obama announces re-establishment of U.S.-Cuba diplomatic ties

But it was a major change from the position both Clinton and her husband
have taken before.

It was then-President Bill Clinton who in 1996 signed into law a
requirement that Congress approve the lifting of any part of the Cuba
embargo.

The move made political sense at the time: Clinton was running for
re-election and the bipartisan bill landed on his desk after the Cuban
military shot down two U.S. civilian planes over the Straits of Florida,
killing four members of the Cuban-American exile group Brothers to the
Rescue.

"We will not tolerate attacks on United States citizens," Bill Clinton
said at the time, "and we will stand with those both inside and outside
Cuba who are working for a peaceful transition to freedom and democracy."

Hillary Clinton said the embargo should remain in place during her 2008
presidential campaign.

"Until there is some recognition on the part of whoever is in charge of
the Cuban government that they have to move toward democracy and freedom
for the Cuban people, it will be very difficult for us to change our
policy," she said then.

Clinton acknowledged Friday that she'd previously supported the embargo.
But she said watching closer ties between Cuba and America as the Obama
administration in 2009 made it easier for Cuban-Americans to visit and
send money to people on the island led her to recommend, by the end of
her tenure as secretary of state, that the embargo be lifted.

Dropping it, she said, would "strip the Castro regime of its excuses and
force it to grapple with the demands and the aspirations of the Cuban
people," and to "figure out how to adapt to a rapidly transforming society."

RELATED: Shift in Cuba politics boosts Obama, challenges Rubio

Hillary Clinton is visiting a changed Florida, two decades after her
original remarks.

The Cuban-American vote, once solidly Republican, has shifted to the
left as younger generations with fewer direct ties to Castro's Cuba make
up an ever-growing portion of the population. A Florida International
University survey of Cuban-Americans in Miami-Dade County, home of the
nation's largest Cuban exile community, found that a majority favor
lifting the embargo.

Meanwhile, Cuban-Americans make up a smaller portion of Florida's Latino
population, as Puerto Ricans and other groups grow in numbers.

The changing trends weren't the only upside for Clinton: At least 20
television cameras, the majority from Hispanic outlets, were present for
Friday's speech. Just like Clinton's support for a path to citizenship
for undocumented immigrants, her position on Cuba is in line with the
majority of Latinos -- a key voting bloc in several 2016 swing states.

Despite Florida's changing demographics and the Cuban-American
diaspora's softened view of the embargo, Republican presidential
contenders remain stiffly opposed to lifting it -- and they're earning
some supporters for it.

Daniela Ferrera, a 17-year-old Miami resident, protested outside
Clinton's event, saying she'll support Rubio because he "actually
believes in freedom for the Cuban people."

Ferrera's family left Cuba in a boat with her family when she was 3. She
became a U.S. citizen in 2001 and will be eligible to vote in 2016, she
said.

Of Clinton, she said, "I respect her as a person, however I don't see
eye-to-eye with her on this issue and frankly, I think she is wrong on
this issue."

She said Clinton should "strengthen, strengthen the sanctions if
anything, because right now they are not really strong and they need to
be stronger."

Bush responded in a statement Friday, saying "It's insulting to many
residents of Miami for Hillary Clinton to come here to endorse a retreat
in the struggle for democracy in Cuba."

"This city has become a home and a refuge to thousands and thousands of
Castro's victims," he said. "Secretary Clinton's call to abandon the
embargo -- and the principles of democracy and freedom for the Cuban
people -- in exchange for nothing in return from the regime in Havana
adds insult to the pain they and their families feel."

Rubio called Clinton's position "a grave mistake," issuing a call for
Cuban democracy that echoed Bill Clinton's 1996 position.

"Unilateral concessions to the Castros will only strengthen a brutal,
anti-American regime 90 miles from our shore," Rubio said in a statement.

"President Obama and Secretary Clinton must learn that appeasement only
emboldens dictators and repressive governments, and weakens America's
global standing in the 21st century," he said. "As president, I will
stand with the Cuban people and only support an end to the embargo that
is accompanied by real democratic reform."

Source: Clinton fights GOP opponents, family history on Cuba -
CNNPolitics.com -
http://edition.cnn.com/2015/07/31/politics/hillary-clinton-cuba-embargo-gop-history/