Word: floridas
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Thousands of Venezuelans residing in Florida cast ballots at their Miami consulate last month in a referendum on whether to abolish presidential term limits back home. Most voted "no," because the last thing they want is to see left-wing President Hugo Chávez run again when his second term expires in 2012. But two of the most emphatically anti-Chávez figures at the consulate weren't voters. They weren't even Venezuelan. They were some of South Florida's most prominent and outspoken Cuban-American politicians: Republican Representatives Lincoln Diaz-Balart and Ileana Ros-Lehtinen...
...Florida's Republicans could use more constituents. Last November, Barack Obama, who won a surprising 57% of the state's Latino vote, became the first northern Democrat to win Florida in a presidential election in 64 years. Cuban-American leaders could use more help in their shrinking corner - especially after a new Florida International University (FIU) poll showed that, for the first time, a majority of Miami Cubans oppose continuing the 47-year-old U.S. trade embargo against Havana. And so the more than 150,000 Venezuelans now living in South Florida - a third of whom have arrived since...
...President of human-rights abuses against opponents and of pressuring independent media that criticize his government. Ros-Lehtinen agrees, noting the similarities between the Cubans who fled the island in the wake of Fidel Castro's communist revolution 50 years ago and the Venezuelans now residing in her South Florida district. "We are very much aware of the key issues facing them," she says. Adds Ninoska Perez, director of the conservative Cuban Liberty Council in Miami, "In many ways, we Cubans see what is happening in Venezuela as the same that happened in Cuba." (See pictures of Cuba...
...similarities may not be that strong - Chávez is still a democratically elected leader who allows, among other things, a noisy opposition press. Furthermore, most of Florida's Venezuelans aren't yet U.S. citizens, so they aren't likely to be a force at the polls. But last month's referendum result will probably push many more to try and stay in this country. More and more, says Ros-Lehtinen, her office is fielding requests from Venezuelans regarding a U.S. immigration policy known as Deferred Enforced Departure, which allows those with expiring visas to extend their stay for reasons...
...Florida's Cuban-American GOP lawmakers, including Lincoln Diaz-Balart's brother and fellow Congressman, Mario Diaz-Balart, are also reaching out to other Latin Americans whose home countries have recently elected leftist leaders, most notably Nicaragua, Bolivia and Ecuador. Some contend the effort is a strategic political move aimed at consolidating their power base during a palpable shift in the dynamic of Florida's Latino community - from traditionally Cuban and reliably Republican, to more Central or South American and Democratic or independent. While incumbents Ros-Lehtinen and the Diaz-Balarts all won re-election in November, their margins...