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GOP Grip On Fla.'s Hispanics Not Firm

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By LAURA WIDES-MUNOZ, The Associated Press

Published: September 8, 2007

MIAMI - For nearly a decade, Republican presidential candidates have counted on Florida's Cuban-American community to win the state and, with it, the presidency.

This year's hopefuls again are making the rounds in Little Havana and on Miami's Spanish-language radio, mixing criticism of Fidel Castro's regime with scathing comments about Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez.

This once fail-safe plan has become risky as Florida's increasingly diverse Hispanic community no longer guarantees a monolithic vote. Of the state's estimated 3 million Hispanics, Cubans represent one-third. People from Puerto Rico and Mexico, traditionally more likely to vote Democratic, make up one-third, and Central and South Americans round out the group.

Meanwhile, Democrats, who after former President Clinton all but ceded the Cuban-American vote, are courting the community with renewed vigor while using Florida as a platform to reach out to Hispanics nationwide.

Republicans Snub Univision

The eight Democratic candidates will participate in a live forum Sunday at the University of Miami sponsored by the Spanish-language Univision Network. The televised forum, with the candidates' answers translated simultaneously from English to Spanish, is aimed at the nation's more than 41 million Hispanics.

Only John McCain agreed to attend Univision's now-canceled GOP forum. His rivals cited scheduling conflicts. Univision executives say they are in talks with the candidates to reschedule the event.

The Univision forum is the third nationally televised Hispanic event in Florida in the past six months that the top Democratic candidates have attended and the third that major Republican candidates have skipped.

Republicans are focused on their core Florida constituencies: religious conservatives, retired and active military members and Miami Cubans. They haven't focused as much on people from Puerto Rico in Orlando or Mexican-Americans or other Hispanics.

That makes sense for now, said Dario Moreno, a political science professor at Florida International University, but likely will change for the general election. Among likely Hispanic voters, Republicans outnumber Democrats by 10 percent in Florida, but the Democrats' numbers are rising, and the GOP's remain flat.

GOP Has A Presence

Rudy Giuliani has sought support among state Republican leaders and in areas such as the heavily Cuban-American Miami suburb of Hialeah.

Mitt Romney also has made repeated visits to Little Havana, including the requisite stop at Versailles restaurant, where Cuban-American leaders long have closed deals over sweet espresso and croquetas.

Giuliani, whose law firm once represented a subsidiary of Venezuela's national petroleum company, and Romney also have criticized the links between Venezuela's Chavez and Cuba's Castro.

That argument resonates both with Cuban exiles and Florida's burgeoning and well-heeled Venezuelan-American community.

Still, it may not play as well with the broader Hispanic community, which is more concerned about mainstream issues such as the Iraq war, the economy and affordable housing - as well as Cuban-Americans frustrated by a decades-old U.S.-Cuba policies that have yielded few results.

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