Word: cubans
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...DiBenigno, 42, is right about the solidifying of the Cuban vote, then trends in the middle of the state, especially along the all-important I-4 Corridor, and the north, where regions like the northwest Panhandle are very reliable GOP terrain, would indeed bode well for McCain in Florida. "Our chances look very good right now," says DiBenigno, who has come under criticism among Republicans the past couple months for McCain's slip in the Florida polls, but whose counsel and on-the-ground knowledge, say backers, has too often been ignored by the McCain campaign's national bosses...
Meanwhile, Kleuddy Abreu, an 18-year-old Dominican-born student living in Hialeah, left the same polling site enthusiastically voicing her support for Obama. "We're not part of the old Cuban mentality here," she said. "Obama represents a fresh start for us." In Hialeah - which traditionally votes as high as 80% Republican in national elections - the old mentality may very well be passing. - By Siobhan Morrissey / Miami and Tim Padgett / Hialeah...
John McCain's Florida campaign director, Arlene DiBenigno, just got an election-day boost from Havana. To win the nation's largest swing state, it's imperative that McCain hold on to South Florida's Cuban-American votes, which usually swing strongly Republican but which Democrats believe they can divide this year. Those voters may have gotten an added impetus to go for McCain a few hours ago when Fidel Castro, Cuba's ailing ex-President and scourge of the Miami exile community, voiced praise for (but didn't outright endorse) Obama: "Without a doubt," Castro wrote this morning...
...going to win Florida," she says. "It will be a nail-biter, but our ground game and absentee ballot organization will prove better than Obama's. [Obama] might spend $20 million here, but McCain has 20 years of experience that crosses over into every community in this state, especially Cuban Americans." She believes that informal voter surveys today show Florida's Cuban-American vote is holding steady enough for McCain to give him the state, where Obama has actually held a slight lead in the polls in recent weeks. And she rejects this year's popular media notion that...
...raucous midnight rally at the University of Miami this week, DiBenigno notes, some 8,000 people turned out, and many were young Cuban Americans, "dancing and swaying to the same music their parents and grandparents listen to" as well as sharing the same political concerns. That includes, she argues, their ardent opposition to any kind of dialogue with the Castros, which Obama might be more open to. "And don't forget what 'redistribution of wealth' means to Cuban Americans," DiBenigno adds. "It means the kind of policies that came to power in Cuba in 1959. That...