For the first time since they have been in Congress, Florida's three Cuban-American Republicans find themselves in a brawl to stay in Washington.
A Democratic sweep is unlikely. But taking at least one out of the three seats would signal the collapse of the Cuban-GOP connection, which for three decades proved so fruitful to the party yet brought little benefit to the community and failed to move Cuba toward democracy.
Changing demographics is what the conventional wisdom cites. More non-Cuban Hispanics who lean Democratic, more younger Cubans less likely than their elders to vote Republican, fewer of the exilio histórico generation -- the men and women now in their 70s and 80s who once gave Reagan and the Bushes upwards of 70 percent of their vote.
True enough, even if not something Republicans like to hear. In District 21, represented by eight-term incumbent Lincoln Díaz-Balart, Republican registration dropped from 131,416 in 2004 to 126,038 this year; Democratic registration rose from 101,235 to 108,358 over the same period. Something similar is happening in the other two districts, represented by Ileana Ros-Lehtinen and Mario Diaz-Balart, Lincoln's brother.
But there is another factor, even if some Democrats will not like to hear it: moderate Cuban-Americans finally got Democratic Congressional candidates they can vote for.
In almost every election since Ros-Lehtinen became the first Cuban-American in Congress in 1989, she and the Diaz-Balart brothers faced either no opposition, political unknowns, or Democrats whose support for a unilateral lifting of the embargo doomed any chance to win.
Classic among the latter is Magda Montiel Davis, against whom Ros-Lehtinen racked up 67 percent of the vote in 1992. Two years later Montiel Davis went to Cuba for an immigration conference and in a video replayed ad nauseam (seldom has the phrase been more accurate) on Miami television, kissed Fidel Castro on the cheek and held his hand as she called him "a great teacher," giggling when he talked about firing squads. Here it is, seconds into the clip (in Spanish, of course).
The moment served to reaffirm the Calle Ocho stereotype that Democrats are "soft" on Castro, if not closet communists. Hard-right Spanish-language stations like Radio Mambí repeat the canard just about every day.
"Radio Mambí has been brain washing people," says Raúl Martínez, the Democratic candidate running against Lincoln Díaz-Balart. The pinko tag is not easily pinned on him, though. For 24 years he was the hugely popular mayor of Hialeah, a working class city outside Miami proper. Think a Cuban Brooklyn.
Martínez, like Barack Obama, wants to end curbs on how much money Cuban-Americans are permitted to send relatives on the island, and allow unrestricted family visitation (there is now a limit of one visit every three years). To hard liners, that's capitulating to the regime in Havana.
But all those years of Martínez getting reelected in impeccably anti-Castro Hialeah show it is also a position embraced by moderates who otherwise oppose lifting the embargo altogether. Martínez wants the embargo to stay (he calls it "the only tool we have to get political prisoners free"). And that combination of loosening visits and remittances without normalizing relations forms a comerstone of the strategy with which he and the two other Democratic challengers hope to unseat Ros-Lehtinen and the Díaz Balart brothers.
"When you need a visa to go to Cuba to see your kid or your grandfather or your aunt, you have a physical necessity to take care of your family," says Joe García, the former executive director of the Cuban American National Foundation and a Democrat running against Mario Díaz-Balart. But he believes that lifting the embargo is "a bridge too far."
"In the end the trade embargo is a moral position that says we are against the longest dictatorship in modern history," he says. It is also a practical stance -- even with all the political and demographic changes shaking up Cuban Miami, a candidate calling for normalized relations with Havana without preconditions would lose in a landslide as big as Reagan ever got.
But these Democrats also say elections in Cuban Miami are no longer just about Castro. "People are beginning to realize this administration has been there for eight years and the Cuba issue has not been on the front burner," Martínez says. "They are losing ground on health care, affordable housing, education is a disaster."
The Raúl vs. Lincoln race is the local version of the Clash of Titans. Two larger than life figures, both used to winning by huge margins or to running unopposed. The Díaz-Balarts come from an old political family with a Kennedyesque aura of dynasty about them. Their father Rafael served in the Cuban Congress during Batista's dictatorship. Aunt Mirta was once married to Fidel Castro. Their child Fidelito, or Little Fidel, is the cousin of Lincoln and Mario.
Martínez's past will surely become a campaign issue. In 1991, when mayor of Hialeah, he was convicted on corruption charges brought on by then-U.S. Attorney Dexter Lehtinen, the husband of Ros-Lehtinen. Martínez calls the charges politically motivated. The conviction was overturned in 1994, and two 1996 trials ended in hung juries.
García and Mario Díaz-Balart are less iconic figures. The incumbent is only on his second term. García has never held elected office but is well remembered for his tenure at the Cuban American National Foundation, where he worked to nurture ties with Democrats, in addition to the traditional Republican links.
Both races are on the Red to Blue program of contests targeted by the Democratic National Committee. The third election, which pits businesswoman Annette Taddeo, a newcomer to politics, against Ros-Lehtinen, made it to the DNC list of "emerging races." The district is only 30 percent Cuban, which might favor the Democrat (who happens to be Colombian-American). But one Democratic operative said Republican Ros-Lehtinen has the advantage of political skills that the Díaz-Balart brothers have not mastered.
"The perception is that Ileana is a little more moderate, a nicer person," he said. "When she calls you hijo de puta, she does it with a smile."