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Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton has sent out mixed messages on Cuba policy in a bid to appeal to a critical Floridian voting bloc that is fractured over how to handle the Castro regime.
The New York senator has largely taken a hard-line approach against the regime, making the issue one of the sharpest policy differences between her and Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.). Although she is a staunch critic of nearly every aspect of President Bush’s foreign policy, Clinton backs his current policy towards Cuba and has won support from some of the toughest congressional critics of Fidel Castro.
However, even as she calls for current policies on Cuba to be maintained, she has broken with the Bush administration’s position on travel to Cuba by signaling a willingness to ease restrictions on Americans visiting family members there.
In 2003 and 2005, she voted for amendments offered by Sen. Byron Dorgan (D-N.D.) to ease restrictions on family travel imposed by the Bush administration. Similarly, in a questionnaire released last week by the Cuban American National Foundation, Clinton said she does not support restrictions on family travel.
But in an accompanying statement with the questionnaire, Clinton again signaled a hard line and support for Bush’s policies. She said that now is “not the time to consider wholesale or broad changes to our Cuba policy.”
Similarly, in a statement last year Clinton said, “Until it is clear what type of policies might come with a new [Cuban] government, we cannot talk about changes in the U.S. policies toward Cuba.”
Philippe Reines, a spokesman for Clinton, says the senator’s positions have been consistent, and her call to maintain Bush policies refers to the “broader” U.S. embargo on tourism and trade in Cuba, “not the narrow exception of humanitarian family visits.”
“Sen. Clinton has long and consistently supported humanitarian family travel — which is exactly what Sen. Dorgan’s amendment addresses,” Reines said.
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