Tyranny of the Minority: The Subconstituency Politics Theory of Representation

1 “¡Quitemos a Castro Ahora!”

1 “¡Quitemos a Castro Ahora!” I At first glance, the man selling limes on the busy street corner in Little Havana looked like any other vendor. But something set him apart. Perhaps it was the large bills passers-by stuffed in his pockets while leaving their limes behind. Or maybe it was the reverence with which the buyers treated him. No, this man wasn’t just a fruit peddler. This man was a hero. This man was Orlando Bosch. Bosch took up selling fruit on the corner of Flagler and LeJeune in protest . After violating probation for firing a bazooka from MacArthur Causeway —the busy road linking downtown Miami and Miami Beach—at a Polish freighter, a judge refused to allow him to travel for work while under house arrest.1 The lime peddler did more than $2,000 worth of sales in just two days and brought traffic to a halt. Clearly, Bosch still had the support of the community, despite a long history of illegal activities designed to overthrow Fidel Castro.2 Perhaps he was a terrorist, but he was their terrorist. The passion of the Cuban American community is hard to overstate. For decades, those seen as even mildly accommodating toward Fidel Castro were vilified in Miami’s Cuban community, where even innocuous statements invited violence. In 1972, for example, a crowd listening to Julio Iglesias at a nightclub rioted after he commented that he wouldn’t mind singing for Cubans. Iglesias left under police escort, and most local radio stations dropped him from their play lists (Mullin 2000). In 1975, Valentin 2 / Chapter 1 Hernandez murdered Luciano Nieves, a local writer who advocated dialogue with Castro. Nine years after Hernandez’s conviction, Governor Bob Graham received more than 6,000 letters calling for his early release. In 1994, a lawyer named Magda Montiel Davis made the mistake of complimenting Castro as “a great educator” during a pro-dialogue conference. She returned home to death threats and protesters. Her entire office staff quit (Mullin 2000). As recently as 2004, Larry Klaman, a Republican Senate candidate, ran on the slogan “¡Quitemos a Castro Ahora! (Take Castro Out Now!).” Given these events, politicians are understandably sensitive to the intensity of Cuban Americans. Although Cuban Americans make up just over 5 percent of Florida’s population, politicians such as Senator Bill Nelson regularly stop in Miami to seek approval from leaders in the Cuban community before traveling to Cuba (March 2002). And despite most Floridians’ indifference on issues pertaining to Castro’s Cuba, not a single state official opposes the positions of the Miami hardliners who advocate increased restrictions on travel and trade. Even Democrats like Bob Graham and Bill Nelson, who would seem to have little to gain from courting the votes of the heavily Republican Cuban American community , support the “hardliners’” positions.3 Sensitivity to Cuban Americans’ preferences extends well beyond Florida. In 2004, most Democratic presidential candidates supported the hardliners’ positions , despite the fact that most Americans support the liberalization of ties with Cuba. Studies show that more than 66 percent of Americans and more than 55 percent of Floridians oppose the travel ban (Davies 2001; Rufty 1998).4 Nationally , public opinion seems to have influenced politicians outside Florida, as separate bills repealing the embargo have passed both the House and Senate in the past few years. John Kerry concisely summarized this apparent contradiction with his admission that foreign policy on Cuba is dictated by “the politics of Florida” (Wallsten 2003). Given Cuban Americans’intensity, it is not surprising that in the fall of 2002, while national headlines focused on security, terrorism, and the president’s march toward war in Iraq, in Miami’s newly created 25th congressional district the race focused on Cuba.5 For the first time since Castro’s rise, a major party candidate, Democratic State Representative Annie Betancourt, supported ending the ban on travel to Cuba, a centerpiece of the policies advocated by Miami hardliners. While a broad national movement was growing to repeal the trade embargo to open Cuba as a market for American agriculture, in Miami, Betancourt ’s stance was heresy. Betancourt’s stand was courageous, but it was also calculated. Her opponent Mario Diaz-Balart, scion of Miami political royalty, is Representative Lincoln Diaz-Balart’s brother and the son of Rafael Diaz-Balart, who served as majority leader in the Cuban House of Representatives from 1954 to 1958 (Nielsen 2002). Diaz-Balart was politically connected and well funded. Even...