The Cuba connection

Why was America so obsessed by Fidel's recent health scare? Look to the "battleground" state of Florida for an answer
September 23, 2006

Fidel Castro's recent intestinal surgery led to a level of coverage in the US media usually reserved for rock stars and champion athletes. What is this fascination with the ruler of a small island nation? Is it the tempestuous cold war history, Cuba's close proximity to Florida, memories of the Elián González custody battle of 2000?

Certainly all of these are important. But when it comes to America's political leaders' obsession, the answer is more fundamental. Simply put, Fidel has a major role to play in who gets elected president of the United States. This may sound strange, but it's true. And it illustrates the worst aspects of America's peculiar system of electing the president.

The presidency is the only elected office for which a candidate can win a majority of the popular vote yet lose the election. The winning candidate is the one that manages to capture a majority of electoral college votes, won state by state in 50 winner-take-all contests.

Most states are either Democratic or Republican strongholds, creating a presidential battlefield of "safe" and "battleground" states. As a campaign strategist, the winning calculus is simple: ignore the safe states and focus on the handful of battleground states that decide the winner.

As we saw in the last two presidential elections, two battleground states held huge significance—Ohio and Florida. Florida, the fourth largest state with 27 electoral votes—a tenth of the number needed for victory—is the biggest of prizes in the presidential sweepstakes. Because the three largest states are all safe—California (Democrat), Texas (Republican) and New York (Democrat)—voters in Florida are much more important to presidential candidates than voters in any other state except Ohio, with 20 votes.

The extremely close presidential race in Florida is heavily influenced by a particular group of voters: Cuban Americans. They are a well-financed and vocal minority with a leadership of Cuban exiles that for decades has loved to hate Fidel. Both Democrats and Republicans fall over themselves to court the Cuban vote, which comprises half of 1 per cent of the US population. This special interest group has much greater influence than its size warrants simply because of the crucial role that Florida plays in our presidential election.

Recall the fiasco in 2000 around the Cuban boy Elián González, the six year old who survived a nightmarish ordeal at sea only to get caught in the nets of presidential campaign politics. Vice-president Al Gore, who was running for president, disregarded his own administration's policy by making a pilgrimage to Florida to support the Cuban exiles' bid to hold the boy in the US. The drama was only heightened when the Clinton administration ordered law enforcement to forcibly remove the boy to Cuba. But if Elián had been Haitian instead of Cuban, or if his plight had unfolded in Wyoming, no one would have cared.

Any controversy related to Cuba, particularly around election time, degenerates in the US into political pandering to the anti-Fidel vote, because small shifts in the Florida vote can have huge impacts nationally. This is one of the many reasons for America to change the way it elects its presidents. Quirks in the electoral college mean that there are ample incentives for both Republicans and Democrats to support a move to a national popular vote system. In 2004, if a mere 60,000 voters in Ohio had changed their minds and voted for John Kerry, he would have won the presidency even while gaining 3m fewer votes than Bush. And Al Gore was famously denied the presidency in 2000 after the Florida debacle, even though he won the most votes nationwide.

Republican senators Orrin Hatch, John McCain and the late Strom Thurmond have supported reforming or abolishing the electoral college. The Democratic senator Dianne Feinstein and representative Jesse Jackson Jr have introduced constitutional amendments to institute direct election of the president. The most innovative approach has been proposed by nationalpopularvote.com, which aims to encourage states to enter into compacts with each other to award each state's electoral votes to the winner of the national popular vote.

Whenever you see US news related to Cuba or Fidel, reflect on how the country's presidential electoral system gives such influence to a small minority of voters. If you are in the right state, and the right group of voters, you can bring powerful politicians to their knees.